DRAGON HEAD DANCE
by Ckrisz
Summary: Spike and Faye try and buy Jet a birthday cake. Gunfights, explorations of the past, and Spike/Faye ensues! Chapter 7 finally up: Lornette reminisces. And slaps Faye. Please R/R, thanks!
1. Forty-five Caliber Cake Mix

SESSION #21.5: DRAGON HEAD DANCE  
  
"What's the date?"  
  
"Eh?"  
  
Faye Valentine sighed. "Hey, what's the date."  
  
Ed grinned at her. "Date-date. Faye-faye wants to date-date."  
  
"What? Arrrgh ..." Faye adjusted her the holster in her back and stalked off to find Jet or Spike. That damn little brat was off coasting in cyberspace again. She'd be better off finding some time to comb that hair of hers ...  
  
Faye could think of someone else like that. He was slouched in front of the HTV, idly poking it with his shoe.  
  
"Hey, what's the date?"  
  
Spike Spiegel yawned. He'd finished with his form practice a half hour ago, taken a shower, and was counting the minutes until Big Shot came on. He checked the clock ... okay, one-thirty ...Two hours!  
  
"What?"  
  
Faye felt like stomping. "Don't you know? That bounty, whatshisname Ferrato, he's due to arrive in Ophir City on the 2nd of December, according what Jet's informant said."  
  
"So?" Another one of Faye's bounties? Spike had already forgotten.  
  
"He's eight hundred thousand woolongs, that's what!"  
  
Hmm. Eight hundred thousand, that ... okay. Spike checked his watch. "Well, Mars calendar ... it's December 3rd already."  
  
"Arrrgh!" Faye slapped her forehead. "How many bounties have we missed out on already this month?!"  
  
Spike closed his eyes. "Well, there was Fouad Smith, remember. The one you let get away on Tijuana."  
  
"Hey, Jet was supposed to be in the alley!"  
  
"Also Jackie Bourgoza, five hundred thousand woolongs, the one who outran you back on Europa."  
  
"I was wearing high heels!" Faye snapped. "Are you forgetting the bribe we had to pay Jet's ISSP buddies for when you torched that bar?"  
  
Spike opened his eyes. "Hey, he was shooting at you!"  
  
"So you had to use your plasma cannon?"  
  
Spike clenched his fist. Faye gritted her teeth. They stared at each other. A silent growl seemed to pass between them.  
  
Jet poked his head into the room. "Oy, fighting again?"  
  
"Hah!" Faye turned up her nose.  
  
"Nobody worth fighting in here." Spike closed his eyes and put his hands behind his head.  
  
"Well, if you're both done ...Someone's got to go get some food. You can pick the menu, but remember, we're short this month. Again. Who was it blew that Bourgoza bounty?" Jet had a small grimace on his face. He already knew ...  
  
"Hi-her!" Spike and Faye were already pointing at each other.  
  
... what they were going to do.  
  
"You've got six hundred woolongs. For the month. I've got to fix Hammerhead's motor guidance system, Ed's checking on our next bounty. That leaves you two. Now get going." Jet jerked his thumb. "And try not to get into trouble. For once."  
  
  
  
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"Check that out." Spike pointed at the spreading black mass at the bottom of Orphis' giant canyon. "Army base. One of the biggest around outside Tharsis. Half the people in Orphis are ex-Army. Stay away from that airspace, they'll shoot you down before you get a chance to open that big mouth."  
  
Faye swung Redtail in behind Spike's Swordfish II as they cruised down onto the 40-mile rock outcrop that was Orphis City. "Where are we going shopping again?"  
  
"We've stopped here before. Over near the main spaceport, Ahmad's Universal."  
  
"Wait a minute. That's where you two got that defective ECM missile!" [see Session 9, JAMMING WITH EDWARD] Faye remembered that missile. It's missing had nearly gotten her killed.  
  
"Well, yeah, but we've only got six hundred woolongs. Besides, we're buying food, not missiles." Spike grinned. "They've got some clothing stores over there."  
  
Faye steamed. "That's supposed to take my mind off?"  
  
"Well, a mini-casino too ..."  
  
"Baka." Faye cut in front of Swordfish II as the legal jetway opened up on her HUD.  
  
Ahmad's Universal was a giant merchant mall that sold to the Army base and all the space traffic centered around Orphis City. There was an area like it in every city with a spaceport, chock full of goods both legal and illegal, syndicate gangsters, crooked cops of the ISSP, planetary, and local varieties, and enough regular, arrestable criminals to keep the Bebop in woolongs until its engines finally went to the big scrapyard in the heavens. But Jet had told them to stay out of trouble ...  
  
"Hey, what's the date?"  
  
Faye stewed. This was not going to be one of those days, she swore. She was not going to let them get to her. "It's December 3rd, remember?"  
  
"It's Jet's birthday."  
  
"Huh? His birthday?" Faye asked. It was hard to put Jet Black together with birthdays . It was hard to imagine Jet at a birthday party, or even Jet as a kid. She wondered if he had always had those sideburns.  
  
"Yeah, I remember. We caught this one bounty last year, and Jet said that money always came on his birthday."  
  
"We don't have any money now."  
  
Spike was smiling. "Well, at least we should buy him a cake. Maybe it'll make us lucky."  
  
"A cake? Hey, what are you talking about ."  
  
"A cake!" Spike snorted. "Over there, there's a bakery. Bazooka Bakery."  
  
The comm channel sparked. "Ed loves cakes! Lemon frosting cake!"  
  
"Ed? Didn't Jet tell you not to cut into the comm. channels?" Faye waggled her finger at the comm. "So much for your souvenir!"  
  
"Ed wants lemon frosting cake! Lemon frosting, okay for Ed?"  
  
Spike shrugged. "Three things I hate ..."  
  
  
  
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The baker's assistant was very enthusiastic.  
  
"Well, you're in luck! We got lemon frosting, we got strawberry frosting, coldberry frosting, with real coldberry from Callisto. We also got raspberry, coconut, tapioca, red-bean ..."  
  
"Okay," Spike cut in. "We'll take the lemon. Faye, pay the man."  
  
"Hey, wait a minute, who said anything about me paying?" Faye stepped forward and lowered the sunglasses on her nose to look at Spike. "It was your idea."  
  
"I don't have any money, except for groceries."  
  
"Well, who said I did?"  
  
"Excuse me, miss?"  
  
The clerk behind the counter couldn't have been more than twenty, but his eyes were big as saucers. "Your name is Faye?"  
  
Faye stared at the kid. He was rail-skinny, with dark hair and tanned skin, freckles. Totally average. "So?"  
  
"My name's T-Tylor." The kid almost stuck his hand out, then seemed to think better of it. "So you guys are together?"  
  
"Watch it," said Spike.  
  
"In his dreams, maybe," snapped Faye. "I think I have a bit more class than that."  
  
"Class!?" Spike almost gagged on his cigarette  
  
"Anyway," said Faye. Good God, she'd have to pull this stuff again ...  
  
She leaned over the counter to give Baker's Assistant Tylor a better look at her. "How much would this cake be?"  
  
"Ha, ha . We're having a sale," said Tylor helpfully.  
  
"A good sale?"  
  
"Uh, maybe ..."  
  
Spike smiled inwardly. Typical Faye ... this poor kid was out of his league. At least he wasn't paying for the cake, and it would cheer Jet up. They'd missed four bounties in a row now, burned up forty thousand units of fuel, and were down to their last hundred thousand woolongs. Well, it wasn't anything they hadn't gone through before ...  
  
Faye kept grinning and pushing her cleavage together to keep poor Tylor spinning and baking. Fifteen minutes later, he'd whipped up a five- pound chocolate cake with lemon frosting and cherries circling the center. Faye spelled out HAPPY BIRTHDAY JET BLACK for him and blew a little kiss that Spike thought was overdoing it.  
  
"Are you sure you don't want to charge us for it?" Faye simpered.  
  
"Uh, it's okay. I mean, the owner's away on vacation, I'm in charge, so ..." Tylor was beet-red, a nervous grin written on his face.  
  
"Hey, do you mind carrying this out to my pod for me? You look like such a chivalrous, gentle young man ... strong, too!"  
  
Tylor had the cake boxed and wrapped and was holding the door for Faye before Spike had finished his second cigarette. As he approached the two bounty hunters' ships, he gaped. "Wow, are those 60mm Nambus? GSN-45s?"  
  
He was pointing at the twin guns on Faye's Redtail. Faye looked at him quizzically. "Well, yeah."  
  
"Dual Tigerfish ASM launchers? Wow! I always thought this setup was the perfect one for a light reconnaissance fighter! Combination of good light weight and great firepower! You could take out a small freighter with this stuff and still carry enough fuel to make a Titan-Mars run!" Tylor ran his hands over the patched armor on the left engine exhaust. "You must know what I'm talking about. Your armor says so."  
  
Spike snorted. He took a drag of his cigarette, savoring the bitterness, and heard the first shot.  
  
"Down!"  
  
Faye hit the deck, her Glock already out. She jacked the slide, twisting her head to see where the gunfire was coming from, and was surprised to see Tylor already crawling along Redtail, heading back to the shop. Smarter than he looks, she thought.  
  
People down the block were gaping as a hovercar jumped the corner and slammed to a stop. The rattling of submachine guns scattered them as a man and a woman bailed out of the car and sprinted towards the bounty hunters. Two low-slung black sedans charged down the street and skidded at the intersection. Faye would have laughed at the ineptitude of the drivers if the two fugitives hadn't been running full speed at them. She held back from aiming the Glock; this didn't involve them, and she didn't want it to. Those cars screamed syndicate, and Faye had already had enough of syndicate business to last her a lifetime. Even my lifetime, she thought .........  
  
The first car spun its wheels and charged, two men leaning from its windows. Fire stabbed at the running couple, arcing high. Faye gritted her teeth from behind Redtail. The dark-cut suits with blue trim those men were wearing, so familiar ... The men who had held her at that old church in Tharsis had been wearing those suits, before Spike had come in with guns blazing ... not for her, never for her, gunning for that empty-eyed man called Vicious ...  
  
Red Dragons. Had to be. She darted a quick look at Spike.  
  
His cigarette had fallen from his lips. Impossible ...  
  
"Ho Nam!" Spike shouted. Before he knew what he was doing, he was already standing, his Jericho in his hand. Faye's mouth dropped. WHAT was he doing?!  
  
"Hey!"  
  
Spike's first shot creased the first gunman's arm. The second blew the top of his skull all over the sedan's roof. The syndicate car skidded and came to a stop ten feet in front of the running pair, dumping the second man into the street with a bone-crunching thud. He didn't move, but Spike put two into the back of his head to make sure.  
  
The man, a graying Chinese in a black suit, spun on a dime and turned back towards the car. As the front door began to open he was sprinting back, firing straight-armed with a .40-caliber revolver. His companion, a younger dark-skinned woman, stopped as well, reaching for him. "Dieh!" [Father! In Cantonese]  
  
The old man had to be using APDS rounds; the heavy .40-caliber slugs punched through the door like it was tissue paper. Faye could hear screaming from inside the car, saw blood splatter against the windshield. A body slouched down out of the door. The older Chinese leaned inside the car and more gunshots rang out. He looked back and saw his younger companion running back towards him, firing at the car down the block with her pistol.  
  
"Lornette, get back!"  
  
His dark-skinned companion had caught back up with him. The second car had stopped at the intersection and men were spilling out, laying down fire that sent both of them diving to the pavement. Bloodstained glass littered the street as a third car edged around the corner.  
  
Spike aimed, fired twice and missed once. "Ho Nam!"  
  
The older Chinese had dragged a Nambu light machine gun from the car's interior. He threw his pistol to the young woman and braced the machine gun on the car's hood, ignoring the bullets snapping past. A torrent of fire blazed from the Nambu, sweeping across two men and sending the rest scrambling back from the sedans behind the corner.  
  
They both turned, the man dropping the machine gun and catching a glimpse of Spike's face.  
  
"Spike!" The older man, Ho Nam, stopped as if shot. "Spike! Is it you?"  
  
The young dark-skinned woman, Lornette, stepped in front of her father. "Who---"  
  
"Lornette! It's Brother Spike, from Tharsis!"  
  
Spike didn't wait. "Let's go!" he shouted. "I'll cover you!"  
  
"Spike!" Faye shouted. "Wait!"  
  
Spike was already vaulting onto Swordfish II. The monopod's cockpit swung open and Spike was already angling the jets before it even started closing. "Ho Nam! I'll draw them off! You get away!" Swordfish II's Gatlings charged with a high whine, and Faye already knew what he was going to do. She covered her ears.  
  
Spike swung the nose of Swordfish II across the intersection and cut loose. The roar of the 45mm chainguns blanked out all other sound as shell casings showered the street. Asphalt, sedans, and syndicate gunmen exploded into pieces.  
  
Faye sighed as Swordfish II lifted off and darted south. The acrid stink of cordite and burnt metal hung in the air. Now didn't Jet say, stay out of trouble, Spike?  
  
She looked around for the man and girl who'd been running from the Red Dragons. They'd already left. Good idea. It wouldn't be long before more syndicate men were here, and they'd be bringing drone fighters with them. Time to get going back to Bebop, so they could find Spike and get the hell out of Orphis. Jet was going to be pissed.  
  
"Miss Faye!"  
  
It was Tylor, waving from the door of the store. Two bullet holes had punched through the Bazooka Bakery's display window, but he looked okay. "Don't forget your cake!"  
  
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Edited the grammar on this one ... Please Read and REVIEW! Tell me how I can get better! 


	2. Girls with Guns

NOTES:  
  
Lots of fighting in this one .........  
  
This fic is semi-tribute to all the HK gangster films I've seen. Bonus points if you can spot any direct film references. Also: Triad gangsters call members of their gangs "brothers;" this does not necessarily mean a biological relationship.  
  
Faye gets to kick ass in this fic. I think she should have done a lot more so in the movie and the series, instead of always getting captured.  
  
Please excuse my made-up characters! Read & review, I welcome all constructive criticism. It's the only way I'll get better.  
  
LEGAL STUFF: I don't own COWBOY BEBOP or any characters, this is purely for entertainment, blahblah.  
  
  
  
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Spike scanned the cityscape below. They hadn't come after him with drones -- - probably too much of a chance with the Army base so close. He wondered briefly how Faye was doing --- she'd probably gone back to the Bebop, she'd be okay. His main worry now was finding Ho Nam and whoever that girl was before Vicious' men did.  
  
Swordfish II's usual sensors weren't much good in a city. Spike knew that Ho Nam would be going to ground, searching for one of the thousands of contacts he'd built up over the years on Mars. He'd always been lecturing the young dragons about the need to be righteous, not just for their own souls but to build bonds with people who wouldn't turn on you when you came knocking. Paying for the poor's Founding Day supper, kneecapping the muggers and rapists, forgiving debtors---that was what kept Red Dragon strong.  
  
But what happened when you did all that for someone, and they still sold you out to the police, Spike had asked one night. Or even worse, the White Tigers?  
  
Ho Nam had grinned in that cold winter air, Spike remembered. His smile had been like nothing human.  
  
"That's what Mao has ME for," he had said.  
  
Spike remembered Ho Nam's face when he'd spoken those words. That same face looked back at him now.  
  
You'll pay, Vicious. You'll pay for all of it.  
  
A crimson flare jarred him from his thoughts. It arced high above a block of dull plassteel-concrete apartments, dissipating in the morning sky. Spike remembered firing a flare like that once .  
  
He hit the jets. The streets blurred beneath him and he saw them in the alley crosswise to a side street, five men and the girl Lornette, alone in their midst. Spike immediately braked and dropped Swordfish II down like a rock, overriding the safeties to pop the hatch just as the fighter hit pavement.  
  
The syndicate gangster holding the flare gun gaped at him; this wasn't the help he'd been expecting. He was still getting his guard up as Spike kicked him in the temple.  
  
Too close for guns. Spike closed in, watching Lornette weave between the four remaining gangsters, ducking and spinning away from their clumsy blows. Not bad, he thought.  
  
Two men turned to face Spike, a thickset man with a pugnose and a slimmer boy with a shockwand. Spike lurched right to get the boy between himself and the other thug, waited for the high arcing swing. The slim kid was fast, but Spike had been raised in an older school. Spike's left knife hand stabbed into the boy's wrist, immobilizing it and sending the shockwand spinning; the follow-up right fist crunched into the boy's throat. The second gangster leaped over his collapsed friend. He dodged Spike's feinting kick and reached out to catch it his foot, missed as Spike spun in a full circle to come behind him. The man began to turn, too late; he squawked as Spike caved in his temple.  
  
Lornette had been trained well, Spike saw immediately. Hung gar fundamentals, he thought, as he watched her slip a jab and respond with a straight-arm blow to the kidney. Two flashing jabs and an uppercut; the third man was down. The last gangster began backing away. Spike smirked at the sweating man as Lornette circled to get behind him. "Picking on little girls, now, eh?" Spike shook his head. "Our turn now."  
  
Lornette hit him with a side kick that he barely got his arm in front of; he staggered back and Spike crushed his jaw with an elbow strike. The man bawled once, spilling teeth, and fell flat.  
  
Lornette stepped back, rubbing her knuckles. She looked at the tall, lanky stranger with the odd little smile on his face, her memory racing. Heaven and earth, he's not even breathing hard, she thought. It really is him. Back from the dead ...  
  
"Where's Ho Nam?" Spike asked.  
  
Lornette didn't waste time answering, sprinting down the alley with a wave: "C'mon!" She turned the corner with Spike on her heels, one eye watching behind them.  
  
The door was small, gray, and open in front of them. Lornette dived through it. Spike followed, slamming it shut.  
  
Ho Nam was kneeling in the center of the small basement room, holding an old black woman who was obviously dying. Somewhere along the way he'd been shot in the thigh. Two syndicate men lay against the wall, one with his head twisted grotesquely to the left, a 9mm Glock next to him.  
  
The other one still held the knife that had stabbed the old woman through the heart. There were ragged, crimson holes where his eyes had been and his mouth was open in horrified agony. Ho Nam's hands were bloody, but Spike couldn't tell if it was the gangster's or the dying woman's.  
  
Lornette was crying silently, two slow tears running down either side of her face. She knelt next to Ho Nam and put her arms around him. Spike, not knowing what else to do, went back to the door and edged it open, checking the alley. One of the syndicate men had dragged himself to the wall, coughing up blood.  
  
"Spike!"  
  
Ho Nam was standing. He'd draped his jacket over the dead woman's face. Somewhere along the way he'd been shot in the lower left leg, but it didn't look like it had slowed him down, at least not the way the dead men against the wall looked .  
  
"Ho Nam," said Spike, stepping forward. He clasped hands with the older man, feeling things creeping in his gut, things he'd thought he'd never feel again. "It's been a long time."  
  
"So Mao was right, all along." Ho Nam sighed. "I wish he could have seen you."  
  
"Father." Lornette was wiping her tears. "We---we need to go."  
  
Wordlessly, Ho Nam turned and knelt again before the dead woman. He folded his hands and closed his eyes, praying. Lornette looked at Spike through cloudy eyes. He seemed as sad as she felt.  
  
Ho Nam stood again. "Let's go."  
  
  
  
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Jet looked at Ein. Ein looked at Jet.  
  
"Sit!"  
  
Ein looked at Jet.  
  
Jet crossed his arms. He furrowed his brow. "Sit!"  
  
Ein scratched himself and padded off down the corridor.  
  
Jet sighed. He closed his eyes and pondered his situation.  
  
"Why doesn't anyone listen to me!" he shouted into the empty room. "This is MY ship! My rules!"  
  
Silence.  
  
"I cook for everyone! I've saved all of their lives, at least twice!"  
  
Ed poked her head into the room. Ein was perched on top of it, looking nervous.  
  
"Jet!"  
  
She staggered into the room, swaying back and forth, trying to balance Ein atop her mop of unruly red hair. Ein growled in fright.  
  
"Jet! Jet! Jet! No one listens to me!" Ed broke into giggly laughter as she twisted her neck to some invisible rhythm, Ein clinging on for dear life. "My ship!"  
  
"Oy! Hey, stop it!" Jet stood up.  
  
Ed giggled again and staggered down the hall. Jet poised himself to follow, then heard a THUMP! Ein's squeals of pain and Ed's whining told him all he needed to know.  
  
"Those two down there better not be getting into any trouble," he grumbled to himself. "I'm not fixing any more ships today."  
  
Jet checked the clock. It had been four hours. The flight to Orphis City took twenty minutes.  
  
"Arrrrgh." He reached for his cellphone.  
  
  
  
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Faye took the cake from Tylor. "My card's inside the box," said the baker's assistant, with a bit more calm than Faye had expected from a kid who'd just been in the middle of a gunfight. "You know, you can give me a call, whenever, you know ..."  
  
Faye chuckled. She patted him on the shoulder and was rewarded with a visible blush. "Hey kid, if I ever want a good birthday cake again, I'll be right here." She tapped his nameplate above his lapel. "Tylor. You be here waiting for me."  
  
"Sure thing, Faye!" She could have sworn he was almost gleaming with joy. "Listen, don't worry about those little bullet holes, who knows what was going on out there, but you're safe in here."  
  
"I'm---"  
  
The box jumped in her hand. She looked down and saw a single hole in the cardboard. Funny, that hadn't been there before---  
  
"I'm safe in here?!" Faye yelled as she fell back. More rifle shots popped through the shop window.  
  
Faye held tightly onto the cake as she groped for her Glock. She rolled below the windowsill and watched pieces of glass flying. She risked one quick peep and ducked back down.  
  
Two syndicate men were trying to open Redtail's cockpit. A sedan was facing the shop, with two men behind it firing assault rifles into the Bazooka Bakery. A third man had a light machine gun braced on the car's hood, pounding it in frustration. Jammed, she thought. Him first.  
  
She waited until she heard the first "click" as one rifleman ran out of ammo. Faye braced herself, stood, shot the machine gunner and the rifleman next to him, and was back down before the bodies hit the pavement. Shouts of surprise and a man's dying gurgle reached her as a new barrage of fire blasted the bakery.  
  
Another machine gun opened up, punching out all of the windows and lashing the countertops. Cakes blew apart in frilly pink-and-yellow bursts; Tylor was cursing loudly.  
  
Running boots, coming at the door. At least four more of them. More rifle shots came in the window. She got on her knees and crawled below the window to the door. She stayed on her belly, her gun pointed straight at the doorway.  
  
The syndicate did not disappoint. A blurring shape kicked open the door; Faye shot that man three times, shifted, and shot the man behind him twice as bullets sang above her. Gangsters lurched away from the door, there was a lot more shouting, and the door swung closed. Then a LOT more screaming; the grenade the first man had been trying to toss into the bakery exploded outside.  
  
Faye sprang up and jumped the counter, flattening herself against the floor as machine-gun rounds chased her. Tylor was balled next to her, his hands punching the combination on a locked metal cabinet at the bottom of the counter.  
  
Too many of them, Faye thought. She hadn't been in a situation this bad since that time in the church. Well, at least now she wasn't handcuffed, she thought grimly, looking at the corpses of the two men she'd just shot down. They must think Spike's in here, or they think that I know where to find him. She snorted. They really didn't know him at all, the idiots. Like he would tell me anything.  
  
That bastard Spike. He'd saved her then, but now he'd started a gunfight and run off, leaving her to face men who wanted to kill HIM. Why had he tried to intervene? That little girl ... had that been Julia?  
  
For some reason, the thought filled her with rage. She reloaded the Glock, racked the slide, and jumped up.  
  
Machine-guns chattered. Sections of the back wall blew out all over her. Faye didn't blink. She fired twice; the first man fiddling with Redtail's lock slumped against its canopy, his head a bloody ruin; the second yelped and fell off, clutching for an ear that was no longer there..  
  
She ducked back down as the machine-guns chewed futilely at the heavy marble counter. What she'd seen had chilled her. Two more vehicles had pulled up. At least four men were piling out of an airtruck, pulling long black rectangles from its trunk.  
  
"What do you see?" asked Tylor.  
  
"Trouble." She blinked dust out of her eyes. "They're coming with Kevlar shields."  
  
"That's okay," said Tylor. The cabinet buzzed open and he went in. His hands came out with the ugliest gun barrel Faye had ever seen. He dragged more pieces of dark, greasy metal out of the cabinet and began snapping them together. She recognized it as he attached the tripod.  
  
"That's a damn assault cannon!" Faye said. "Where the hell did you get that?!"  
  
"FN 40mm Bulldog, light-infantry assault weapon. I used to be an armorer for the Army, on Titan. We're the ones who keep the guns working." He pulled a fat black cartridge from the cabinet's back shelf and seated it as the light machine-guns started chattering again. "I took home some souvenirs," he shouted over the roar.  
  
"Shoot!" Faye shouted back.  
  
"Here," he shoved the assault cannon at her. "I only work on them, I don't use them."  
  
"What?!"  
  
The machine-guns stopped. Faye could hear boots crunching gravel and glass; they were coming. Five seconds, she thought. That's all I have until they shoot us both.  
  
The assault cannon was heavy, but Faye had it on the counter and was already sighting down when one of the advancing gangsters saw her. He fired first.  
  
The hair on the left side of her head puffed. They were all no more than fifteen feet away when she squeezed the trigger.  
  
Riot shields, the men behind them, the wall and door and windows, they all exploded as Faye swept the assault cannon across everything in front of her. The Bulldog roared and kicked, but Faye kept the barrel down and her trigger finger tight. She went for the cars lined up outside the shop, tearing apart anything that could hide a gunman. Shells burst, men screamed, metal shrieked and whirred. Keep it up, keep on until they're all gone ...  
  
The airtruck that had brought the shields began to lift off, trying to escape. Faye ripped the driver's cab and watched it fall back to earth in two pieces, burning. And then it was over. The Bulldog clicked empty, and Faye snatched her Glock out of its holster. But there was nothing moving in front of the store, not anymore. She let a small gasp of pain escape; the Bulldog's recoil had left a bruise on her shoulder.  
  
"Faye, are you okay?!" Tylor was standing next to her. He looked at the destruction in front of the store, the shattered debris of building, cars, and men, his mouth open. "God!"  
  
Faye rubbed her shoulder, then slid her Glock into its holster. She coughed once to clear her throat. "Not bad, kid," she said. "You like big guns?"  
  
Tylor didn't say anything, just handed her something. She looked down. Jet's cake box, with two more bullet holes in it.  
  
Well, you had to salvage something ...  
  
"Hey, you think you can give me a ride home?" Tylor tried to smile, failing. His eyes didn't seem to be able to leave the carnage outside. "I-I don't think a cab is going to come here, in the middle of---of all that."  
  
Faye looked at the front of the store. She didn't know when, didn't know where, but ... she'd seen worse. Once.  
  
She'd felt worse. She knew that.  
  
But Faye gave him a smile anyway. The kid deserved that much. "You going to bring that cannon?"  
  
Tylor tore his eyes away and looked at her instead. His eyes belonged to a man dying of thirst, glimpsing an oasis. "Uh ... sure!"  
  
"C'mon, kid. Careful not to slip in the blood."  
  
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Wanted to get a quick update in ... Was going to make this longer. Hope this one isn't too violent for folks. Don't worry, more character development to come in chapter 3! If folks want more.  
  
Please R&R! I need feedback and suggestions if I'm going to get better! 


	3. Background Noise

DISCLAIMER: I don't know own Cowboy Bebop or its characters, this work is strictly for entertainment value, so on and so forth.  
  
In Triad parlance, a "49" is a foot soldier, the first rank one attains upon joining. Just a regular gangster. A "426" or "Red Pole" is a war leader or a chief hitman.  
  
Okay, I thought this chapter kind of sucked, so I reworked it a little bit. Hope it makes Tylor a bit more realistic ...  
  
  
  
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"Hoy, Spike."  
  
"Jet."  
  
"Where the hell are you? What are you into?"  
  
"Can't talk right now. Have to see to an old friend."  
  
"Hey, Spike, wait! An old friend from before?"  
  
"Ask Faye. She'll tell you what happened."  
  
"Hoy---"  
  
Spike clicked the phone off. Jet might call back in a day or two, but he knew better than to press him now. Jet, at least, still understood what a man had to do.  
  
The hiding place Ho Nam had led them to was an abandoned truck stop three miles in the Orphis suburbs, running along a barely used highway that led sightseeing tours into the canyon networks below the city. An industrial park, empty for the weekend, and a mechanized junkyard surrounded it. It would do for a day or two, Ho Nam had said, but after that they would have to move again.  
  
He started back inside the dim one-story building. Lornette was on her way out. Spike looked at her, really looked at her, for the first time.  
  
She was coffee-skinned with sharp cheekbones and alert, almond eyes, with sweeping braids that dropped down her shoulders. Her long, stringy muscles stood out on her shoulders and arms, evidence of tough training. Her eyes were brown and sad. She'd really grown into a striking woman, he thought. Like her mother.  
  
Ho Nam appeared behind her, a slight limp making him look old for the first time.  
  
"Spike, come in for a moment. Lornette, please wait before you go. I want Spike to go with you."  
  
She didn't say anything, just walked outside with tight shoulders. Spike followed Ho Nam past the lounge and into the truck stop's old kitchen.  
  
"We heard about your fight with Vicious, in the old cathedral. You killed all of his men, almost killed him." Ho Nam sat himself on the counter. "I didn't believe it, at first. Thought that maybe it was a ghost."  
  
Spike smiled. "Maybe it was."  
  
Ho Nam inclined his head. The scar where an ISSP riot baton had hit him as a child showed white below his scalp. "You are thinking, why is he still alive. Why didn't he strike Vicious before he murdered Mao."  
  
Spike avoided Ho Nam's eyes. "I know why."  
  
"After you left, most of the young dragons, they went with Vicious. Why not? You were dead, who were they to follow in the war to come? All the Red Poles, even me, we all thought it was the right thing. After you, Vicious was our best." Ho Nam struck a match and lit a cigarette for himself. Smoke curled around his eyes, his scar. "And after my Mace died ..."  
  
"No one blames you. Everyone knew what she meant to you."  
  
"Vicious knew too. When he wiped out all of the loyalists, he left me alive. Because he knew I was too weak to do anything, even for the man who raised me from the dirt." Ho Nam's voice was dead. Like a man in a dream, Spike thought. It doesn't really matter.  
  
"But after the fight in the church ..." Spike asked.  
  
"Yes, I got some of the older heads together. The useless ones, like me. We went after Vicious, for Mao. And for you. Killed two of his lieutenants, we had four cities in our hand. The Van might have even anointed us, if we had ..." Ho Nam clutched his fist. "But he wasn't really injured like they said. Not mortally. After he showed himself to the 49s, they all left us. While the Van did NOTHING."  
  
Spike grimaced. He knew what Vicious had done then, even before Ho Nam spoke.  
  
"They shot Pike down in front of his nine-year-old son. Strangled the son. Killed the Gorch brothers, Duck-face Gu, Dutch, even little Martinez. Do you remember him? The one that Lin used to look after, after his mother died of the virus? Vicious cut his head off with his katana, they say. After they tortured him."  
  
"Tortured him to find you," Spike said. "The old woman back there ..."  
  
"She was Lornette's grandmother. Mace's mother."  
  
"I see. I didn't recognize her at first ..."  
  
Ho Nam's face was murderous stone. "She always hated me. Hated me for taking Mace from her. For being what I am. But she took me in at the end, and she died for it."  
  
"She didn't take you in for you. For Lornette." Spike looked back toward the door. "What are you going to do?"  
  
Ho Nam's face softened. "Do you remember Olympus Mons, and Master Wong?"  
  
"Of course I do. She shows his training."  
  
"As do you. He only gets our best. Mao sent you there. I did  
  
the same for Lornette."  
  
"She has potential," Spike said. "The way she moves .... But not for this." Spike's face hardened. "Why did you bring her out of there?"  
  
Ho Nam gritted his teeth. "In the old days, you never---"  
  
"These aren't the old days." Spike's eyes were full and hard. Ho Nam blinked, and gave in. Spike ... he'd changed.  
  
"You always saw things clearly." Ho Nam shrugged. "You're right. I was too confident. I thought that with her by my side, I couldn't lose. Besides, it was---"  
  
Spike interrupted. "She's not Mace. She's not me. She doesn't owe you anything."  
  
Ho Nam was quiet for a moment. When had this happened to him, where he thought he could talk back to a 426? He was good, but he wasn't a true Red Pole, not---  
  
No. You aren't either. Not anymore. Old dragon, you were that blind----?  
  
Ho Nam sighed. The age showed again, in his eyes and his face. "When I'm finished here, take her back to Olympus. Vicious doesn't dare touch her, not there."  
  
Spike looked away. So some of the old Ho Nam still survived, then. He was glad.  
  
"You could always go to Callisto. Or Earth. Vicious can't look for you everywhere."  
  
Ho Nam stubbed out his cigarette and began unwrapping the bandage on his leg. "I have to get a proper dressing on this, if I'm going to move. Go with Lornette, she wants to scout the place out." He turned his back.  
  
Spike opened his mouth, as if to say something.  
  
"Nothing lasts in this world," Ho Nam said softly, almost to himself. "Julia knew it too, Spike."  
  
He heard Spike leave through the double doors. Time to go, he thought. Old dragon, who wants to live forever?  
  
Spike looked back at the double doors. When my time comes, I won't do what you did. I'll be strong enough to face it on my own.  
  
  
  
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"Here, Faye!" Tylor's goofy grin was back in place. He handed Faye a cup of black Turkish coffee and drank his own with relish. She looked at the curtains that provided a threadbare privacy for his 20 x 10 living space. She could hear jostling and some whispered curses from behind it. Good God, she thought. What a pack of losers. She could almost feel them straining to hear what they were saying.  
  
Tylor lived in a rooming house in the north slums of Orphis City. It was a rundown place, barely livable. Faye triple-locked Redtail's cockpit and helped Tylor carry the Bulldog into the building. Tylor lived, of course, on the tenth floor, and the elevator was broken. The floor was laid out in a long corridor, with rows of cubicles to either side. Men of all ages were sitting around, cleaning or eating or shooting dice. All eyes had gone straight to Faye when she'd come up the stairs.  
  
"Hey, Tylor!" An older man with four teeth glistening from a wet smile stood up and gestured. "Wow---"  
  
Faye wasn't about to deal with all of that nonsense. The catcalls had still been rising in the men's throats when she fired a round from her Glock into the ceiling.  
  
That had silenced them; Tylor and Faye had walked to Tylor's cube with barely a whisper behind them. That didn't stop them from crowding around when Tylor had drawn the curtain.  
  
"Thanks for helping me bring the Bullldog up," Tylor said, pulling a long black footlocker from underneath his cot. He dialed in a combination and pressed his thumb against a small scanner above the lock; four bolts clicked back and he opened it. "I'll just put it in with the rest of the stuff that needs cleaning .. I've been pretty sloppy lately. Busy at the shop."  
  
Faye felt a small tinge of sorrow. "What are you going to do now?"  
  
"What do you mean?"  
  
"Your store, it's all shot to pieces." Faye didn't really want to sit down on the cot next to him. She stood back and crossed her arms over her chest. He was a nice kid, she thought. He doesn't look upset at all.  
  
"Well, it's okay. It's just one, there's at least eight stores in Orphis. I'll just go work at another one. I'm not much of a baker, but the owner likes me." Tylor began disassembling the assault cannon. Faye glimpsed at least four assault rifles and a M-203 grenade launcher inside the footlocker as she looked down at him.  
  
"Do you sell those?" Spike would like to see this, she thought. He was always on the lookout for new guns.  
  
"No," he replied, an uncertain shyness creeping back into his voice. "I just like to work on them. Guns, they're pretty to me. I always had fun working with them."  
  
Faye looked at him quizzically. "But you don't shoot them? Isn't that what they're for?"  
  
Tylor's hands worked methodically. "Not for me. I mean, I don't think of them like that anymore."  
  
"But weren't you on Titan?"  
  
"Yeah."  
  
"You didn't fight?"  
  
Tylor's eyes seemed to lock in on the assault cannon's parts, spread across his thin cot. "I wanted to, when I was there. I liked guns and I was good with them. They drafted all of us, I mean, I was an orphan. In the State orphanage, they drafted everyone who could go. It was our duty to repay the State, that's what they said. So we were going to go to Titan."  
  
Faye sat on the bed. His eyes didn't seem to be looking at her anymore.  
  
"I didn't mind. I wanted to go, we all did. Who wouldn't want to get out of the orphanage? I was 15, so they put me to work in the armory. I really wanted to go with the Special Forces. But I was too young. One of my friends, he got to go. I stayed in touch with him. He was my best friend from the orphanage, he was a great athlete. I mean, I was smaller than most kids. He kept the bigger ones from picking on me. He told me that no one had done that for him when he was coming up in the orphanage. He felt it was his responsibility to do that for me."  
  
Faye wanted to stop him, stop him before he could reveal something that would make him more than a silly google-eyed boy in her eyes. But his eyes looked too much like her own ...  
  
"My friend, he made it all the way to Special Forces. He got to see everything. He would tell me stories when he made it back to the Base. All I got to see was a lot of sand and guns. I thought it was boring." Tylor smiled for a moment. "I helped fix up his weapons for him, I would work on them special for him. He said he needed a modification for his grenade launcher one day, he said he wanted it to fire plasma grenades instead of just the regular fragmentation ones. I looked at him and he looked different. Not any meaner or anything, just really different. I heard later that the enemy had caught most of his unit, killed them. Only two or three of them got away.  
  
"He told me that he could take me on a run with him a few days after that. He told me that he would show me what the war was like." A tear fell from Tylor's eyes, but his voice didn't change. "The chopper dropped him and five other people from his unit off in a Titan refugee camp. He told me to stay in the chopper. I thought they were going after infiltrators. I was really excited."  
  
There was nothing more to do, she thought. Just leave, that's the best thing to do now. This crazy kid was going to tell her everything.  
  
"What happened?" Faye asked. Why did she have to do that? God, you're so stupid. You don't want to hear this.  
  
"My friend and his unit, went to every tent. There must have been like four, five hundred people. They were shooting everybody."  
  
Tylor's voice was hushed, raspy. "My friend, he was laughing. He was firing plasma grenades into every tent, burning everyone alive. From the launcher I designed. People were crawling under the tent flaps on the sides. They were trying to put out the fire, rolling on the ground, but you can't put burning plasma out like that. And my friend was laughing. If anyone tried to come out of the door he would shoot them with his rifle. But most of the people, they just crawled outside and burned."  
  
The boy's hands were clenched. His knuckles were white and his nails were digging into his flesh. "I just sat there in the chopper and watched with the pilot. The pilot, he was a Special Forces guy too. He was smiling. He told me, this is a camp that supports the enemy. They do this to the camps that support us, he said. These people, don't be fooled. They're all against us and they would kill you if they caught you by yourself, even the little kids. That's what he told me. He said that the Special Forces didn't do this, usually, it was usually the Regular Army that handled that kind of job. But sometimes they had to let off some steam. That was why they were doing this. And when I got back to the Base and told my CO, he said the same thing. I didn't understand that. Letting off steam."  
  
Faye found herself holding Tylor's shoulder. "Hey," she said. "Kid."  
  
Tylor smiled through his tears. "I'm sorry, I don't know why I told you that. I'm so stupid. Stupid and weak, I mean I know you think that, I would too if I were you ..."  
  
"Hey, that's not what I think!" She chucked him under the chin. "Kid, we all ... I mean we all seen bad things. I'm sorry you had to see something like that. But ... sometimes you learn things that way. In a way ... at least you can remember. You know what you've seen, and you can learn from it. I can see it in you already." Faye smiled at him him. "You know you don't want to be like your friend. You're not, trust me. You are so much better than someone like that."  
  
The poor boy had no self control. He was already wiping his eyes and she could tell her words were having their effect. I wonder how much of it is my words and how much are my breasts, she thought, but pushed it away. "Listen to me. You have your memories. Some people out there, they don't even have that. They don't have anything to go on, don't have anything to learn from. You're better off than that, you know? So don't feel so bad ..."  
  
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Okay, I know there wasn't any action in this one. But don't worry, it's coming soon .  
  
Please read & review! I know exposition and characterization is my weakest link, so give me some pointers! 


	4. Flow Like Water, Shoot Like Faye

LEGAL STUFF: I don't own COWBOY BEBOP, this fic is strictly for fun and enjoyment of CB fans, blahzay blah.  
  
Okay, here's another chapter. I am going somewhere with this fic, please be patient with me. No more triad terminology in this one, haha. A little something to explain who the heck Lornette is, and why she's in the fic at all. Also some more Faye action for the action buffs.  
  
  
  
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"Here, watch this."  
  
Spike pivoted left, his guard hand held high while his right spun in a quick attack at Lornette's eyes. She instinctively went back, spinning, and tripped over Spike's instep as he kicked her legs out from under her.  
  
"Uh!"  
  
Lornette caught herself on the way down and spun to her feet. Spike looked on appreciatively.  
  
"I know Master Wong's taught you about that. Flinching's the third reflex you have to get rid of." Spike snapped a quick punch at Lornette's eyes. She laid back only a little bit, gritting her teeth.  
  
"When I was young, I tried to do it by holding a lighter right in front of my eyes." Spike smiled in remembrance.  
  
"Did that work?"  
  
"Well, I burned my eyebrows off first, but .." Spike shrugged. Lornette giggled, showing a little smile for the first time all day.  
  
Spike immediately straightened up. "Ahem. Well, in a fight, you can't flinch when someone goes for your eyes. Translate it like any other attack. Have a counterattack ready. Remember, an enemy throwing a punch at you is just giving you his arm to destroy."  
  
They'd been scouting the perimeter for most of the morning. Lornette had laid gunpowder-sensing butterfly mines on the rooftops of the industrial buildings that surrounded the truck stop. When they were done, Spike had suggested a quick break. But Lornette had a slightly more active idea of what a "break" should consist of than Spike had had in mind, but he went along.  
  
"Now, if the enemy has a gun, don't focus just on that. Watch his eyes, his shoulders. Most people will tense before they pull the trigger, even if just a little. You want to move then, not when you think you should, but when his eyes tell you to move. You have to be quick, but you have the chance to do it. You might still catch one, but it won't be where he's aiming to hit. Besides, anything's better than waiting to die." Spike pointed his finger at her. "Here, watch." He sighted down his thumb at her. "Tell me when I'm going to shoot."  
  
Lornette tensed. Calm down, calm down. Watch his eyes, careful. God, he was just as amazing as she remembered, those eyes. One fake, not that one, the real one. She could sink into those eyes ...  
  
"Bang." Spike looked quizzically at her. "Hey, you didn't move."  
  
"Sorry," Lornette sighed. "I'm---let's try again." Stupid! Concentrate!  
  
Spike frowned. He remembered her as a little girl, skinny and tall for fourteen, but still a child. Mace had seen to that. Even after that time with the White Tigers, she'd still been able to smile ...  
  
He laid his finger at her head and waited. Okay, n---  
  
Lornette dipped, her hips twisting, and exploded. Her legs snapped and drove her perfect, straight-line dragon-claw right into Spike's face. "Wha---"  
  
"Sorry!" Lornette drew back, shocked. "Are you okay?"  
  
Spike picked himself off the floor, rubbing his jaw. "Aayom. You're pretty fast. Did your father teach you that twist?"  
  
"My mother."  
  
Something in her voice made him sorry he'd asked. "Hey, let's take a break for now. You're getting too tough for me." He liked the way her eyes lit when he told her that.  
  
Spike lit a cigarette and slouched down on the floor, resting against the wall. "You're faster than your dad," he commented. "He never was much for empty-hand."  
  
"He always liked guns. They got the job done faster, he said." Lornette sighed. "Mom always yelled at him when he said that. Cowards fight with guns, that was what she said."  
  
"Cowards are afraid to fight without a gun," Spike corrected. "Your mother was a good woman. And your grandmother, too."  
  
Lornette's smile almost died, but a ghost of it danced on her lips. "You know, she never liked you."  
  
Spike chuckled. "I was with your father. Why should she? But I liked her. She was an old woman, but she was never afraid."  
  
"Nana wasn't afraid of anyone," Lornette said. "Not even my dad, and everyone was afraid of Dad." She looked up for a moment. "But she liked Mao. I never understood that. I mean, he told my father what to do."  
  
"Mao was a good man. He was better at showing it than some people." Spike blew a smoke ring. Mao, you old timer, why didn't you see the shadow behind your back ....  
  
"You know, I still remember that time, when you helped me." Why was she looking at him like that?  
  
"The White Tigers?" Spike shook his head. "They should have known better than to go after Ho Nam's family."  
  
"No, not that time." Lornette smiled, blinking rapidly. Why were tears coming now, and not when they'd been talking about her grandmother? "I was young, really young, maybe six or seven. It was behind the recreation center, the one back in the old neighborhood, East Tharsis. There were all these kids. Chinese kids, I think their fathers were with another triad. They were pulling my hair." Why did that still hurt, even now? "Hei guizi. Black devil. They were calling me that, I remember. I was running, but they had chased me down. One of them was really old, he was even older than you. But you came, you came and you knocked two of them down and told the rest of them to run for their lives, or you'd do the same to them." She smiled. "You didn't comb your hair then, either. You picked me up and took me back home, and that was when ..."  
  
"That was when your father asked me if I wanted to be part of a family." Spike finished. "A real family."  
  
The look in his eyes ... Lornette didn't know if it scared her or if it made her feel sad.  
  
Spike smiled then, and she did too. "I didn't know who you were, I didn't even know who he was. The foster agency had just moved me there. I didn't know anyone." He crushed the cigarette out. "Funny, how that kind of thing mattered back then." He shook his head. "To some people."  
  
"Why did you help me, if you didn't know who my Dad was?" she asked. "I remember, I ran past a lot of people, they weren't all Chinese, but they didn't do anything. I think they thought it was a prank---maybe they just didn't care. But you came."  
  
"You don't carry a two-by-four to play a prank," Spike chuckled. "I remember that now. Five of them! On one tiny girl! I don't know. It made me angry."  
  
"Weren't you scared, though?"  
  
"Scared?" He laughed. "Were you scared today?" He gave her a broad, easy grin. "You know, you should really keep training. You have what it takes to be really good."  
  
"But you must have been scared. You were young, then."  
  
"I was three years younger than you are now. Give me some credit, okay, girl?" Spike put his hands behind his head and closed his eyes. "Besides, when you're fighting for someone good, things don't hurt as much. You know?"  
  
She guessed she did. Lornette sat down next to him, propping her hands behind her head and crossing her feet, consciously imitating his posture. "So are you going to help my father now, to kill Vicious?"  
  
Spike cocked an eye at her. Her face had the trusting look of the young. Faye would laugh at her, he thought. She would laugh at me sitting here with her.  
  
"Me and Vicious have things to settle," he said. "I owe your father a lot."  
  
"What about your friend, the one back in Orphis?" Lornette wanted to know.  
  
"Friend?" He stifled a snort. "You mean Faye? That woman's not a friend. More like a stone in your shoe, the kind you can't get rid of. That woman, she's no one's friend except to herself, maybe, and the casinos." Spike grimaced, making a cutting motion with his hand. "If you knew how much money that idiot woman's lost, how many bounties she's cost us, you'd puke. And never mind that she never tells the truth about anything. First time we met, she tells us that she's some Romani, then she claims to have been unfrozen 70 years ago and that she lived on Earth before the Gate Incident, if you can buy that. Delusional. One time, some fat guy, some old boyfriend, showed up and she ran off with him. THEN she turned him in for money! Let me tell you, if you ever run into her, don't trust a single thing she says. It'll always be some angle where she's looking to screw something out of you." He shuffled around in his jacket for another cigarette. "You know, it's good to have someone to talk to about this, not just the usual suspects. Sometimes I think I'll go crazy living on that ship. It's impossible with some people, you know?" He lit the cigarette and puffed.  
  
Lornette looked at Spike's face. It was calm, even tranquil as he talked about that woman. She repressed a sad smile. Men were so transparent, and she was so stupid to even think ...  
  
"What happened to---"  
  
Spike was on his feet. "Hey, you know, we need to get back to your father. He's sure to be feeling better now."  
  
  
  
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Faye spun Redtail upwards into the jetstream, turning towards the main route back to the gravity well. The night was inky blue. For a moment she wondered if there were any grocery stories still open. No way. She needed a shower, bad.  
  
The kid was a nice kid, she thought. Not too many of those growing up nowadays. She looked sidelong at the cake box sitting next to her. The bullet holes didn't show from this side. Hmm. Maybe Jet wouldn't notice.  
  
The damn cake had been Spike's idea, and now he was who knows where, getting into God knows what trouble. Damn him, where was he? Why did he have to just LEAVE, so quickly, without any thought at all, just leaving her to go chase off after strangers? "Idiots," she said. "Why do I even think about such fools? Wasting away my youth ... I was so much better off on my own."  
  
The communicator crackled. Faye clicked it on, "Hello?"  
  
"Faye Valentine," came an unfamiliar voice, harsh and angry.  
  
"Eh, who's this?" Faye was already punching instructions on Redtail. Her eyes were hard. A thousand miles above her, a buzzer went off on the Bebop.  
  
"My name's not important, Ms. Valentine. All we want is for you to deliver yourself to us, unarmed. If you give us the information we need, you will not be harmed." Faye snorted. "We're widebanding you a map of the Farida warehouse district. Follow it there and come alone. Or else your little friend here will suffer. Say something."  
  
God, could Spike ...  
  
Faye slapped her forehead as Tylor's frightened voice came on the line. "Uh, Faye, uh ... don't come---"  
  
There was the sound of flesh hitting flesh, a muffled scream. The voice was back, huffing. "It'll be bad for him if you don't come."  
  
"Bad for you too, right?" Faye put a sneer into her voice. "What's Vicious going to do to you, after you lost so many men already. To a woman, too. Or do you think he'll overlook that, so long as you can bring Spike in, right? Do you think he's going to go quietly?"  
  
The voice on the communicator turned into a blind snarl of rage. Tylor screamed again in the background and Faye immediately regretted what she had said.  
  
"I'll come," she said. "I'll be there."  
  
"Two hours. If we see anyone besides you, if we see a gun on you, I'll put a knife in his liver. Personally." The communicator cut off.  
  
Faye sighed. "Hey Ed, did you get that?"  
  
"Roger-roger, Faye-faye."  
  
"You can pinpoint where he was broadcasting from?"  
  
"All done, Faye-faye."  
  
"Good! Wideband it down to me. And go get Jet." The first rule of combat, she thought. He who shoots first, wins. Faye smiled to herself. She wasn't going to wait for the nasty voice to shoot first. Anything's better than waiting to die ... where had she heard that before?  
  
Faye swung Redtail 180 degrees back towards Tylor's apartment complex. She had some things to pick up.  
  
  
  
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Ho Nam got out of the stolen car. It was a funny thing, killing yourself. He hadn't thought it would feel this good. Nothing more to worry about, no more responsibilities. Even if the worst thing happened, he'd still end up dead. Ho Nam wondered if Spike had ever felt this way.  
  
Vicious must still be hurt, he thought. Otherwise there was no way he'd leave this kind of thing to his flunkies. Was Lin waiting in the building up ahead? No, the Van had already sent him back to Tharsis, to clean up the mess left by Vicious' attempt to kill Spike the first time. That was one relief, at least. He patted the revolver at his side. Amazing that he'd been able to get this close already, no sentries. The building where he'd tracked the outgoing calls of Vicious' lieutenants was up ahead, the tallest on the block, a six-floor office building that was one of Red Dragon's front companies in the city. God, Vicious' boys were sloppy.  
  
Wait, there was one. A dark-skinned, skinny boy and a chunkier friend, sitting in a car by the corner. The skinny boy was the alert one, even if he pretended to be looking at a porno mag. Good, a challenge.  
  
Ho Nam got down on his belly and waited for the boy to check the other side of the street. One quick rush would do it. Wait, wait ........ okay---  
  
The car exploded.  
  
A monofighter screeched from above, twin 60mm autocannons blazing. Men running from the building went down in a fury of exploding concrete as the fighter swept its weapons over them. Ho Nam could barely make out a flash of dark hair at the controls as the fighter raked the lobby with its guns.  
  
A booming sound from the building opposite; Ho Nam looked up and saw the long barrel of a .50-caliber sniper rifle extending from the roof of a third-floor house above him. The rifle roared and a window opposite in the Red Dragon's building shattered. Ho Nam knew that the gunner was picking off whoever showed themselves across the street, restricting the movements of the men inside.  
  
The fighter dropped low and the cockpit went back. Ho Nam gasped as a slim woman jumped out, a H&K submachine gun in one hand and a pistol in the other. She ran into the lobby. The submachine gun blazed inside and Ho Nam could hear hoarse male screaming.  
  
Old man, why are you still standing here?  
  
He ran to join her.  
  
  
  
-------------------------------------------------------  
  
  
  
Poker Alice, that was what that cold-eyed casino owner had called her before. Huh, Faye thought. Did Poker Alice ever have to deal with this kind of crap?  
  
She crouched low in the stairwell. A spray of rifle fire chewed into the wall above her head. Wait for that reload, she thought.  
  
Footsteps. Faye aimed her Glock at the doorway she'd just come from, biting her lip. Come on, she thought.  
  
"It's a friend," came a throaty, deep voice. "I'm a friend of Spike." A man poked his head into view, hands held high.  
  
It was the Chinese man who Spike had recognized, the one whom he'd chased after. A gigantic revolver was in one hand and death's head grin on his face. "My name's Chan Ho Nam." He squatted low beside her. Her Glock still tracked him.  
  
"Who are you?"  
  
"Don't worry." Ho Nam pulled a grenade from his short jacket. "I'm Spike's friend, and Vicious' enemy." He pulled the pin with his teeth, counted to three, and threw it in a high arc. Panicked shouting and a loud explosion blew at the top of the stairwell.  
  
"Come on!"  
  
He was already leading the way, plunging into the smoke and dust. Faye followed, the H&K in front of her. An explosion of automatic fire ripped the hall and Faye hit the deck; Ho Nam's revolver was booming. The smoke cleared and Faye saw three bodies at the end of a long hallway. A row of doors stood at the end, fronted by a pair of wrecked, twisted desks. Faye blinked her eyes and coughed. "God---"  
  
Two of the doors popped open and Faye let go with both guns. Her bullets ripped both doorways, shredding gunmen and plaster indiscriminately. She let the H&K climb, gutting a dark-skinned gunman and two more behind him; her trigger finger worked metronomically on the Glock, pounding .45 rounds into the cloud of dust and dying ahead of them. Faye could glimpse men falling backwards, screaming in the midst of it all, but all that was blotted out by the burning in her arms and wrists as she kept the guns up and firing. Had to keep firing until they were all down, all dead.  
  
Her H&K clicked empty, and her Glock a second after that. Faye let her arms fall in relief and ducked back into the cover of the stairway. She dumped her clips and began reloading.  
  
"Miss, you're quite a shot," said Ho Nam. He jumped up, fired twice, ducked back. "You know, with a gun you're as good as Spike."  
  
Faye looked at him, startled for a moment. He flashed a quick grin and then was gone, charging down the hallway. More gunfire, shouting in Chinese and English. Faye shouted, "Wait, Goddammit!"  
  
Well, she supposed Spike had learned this crap from someone ....  
  
Faye only noticed now that her ears were ringing. The gunfire was fading into the distance now, though she still heard pounding steps. More of them coming. Was he still alive?  
  
Pounding steps behind her. Faye began to turn; cold metal pressed against her back. Terror shot into her mind, and a sudden, shocking regret. Spike ...  
  
  
  
Okay, sorry to end on a cliffhanger, but I'm pretty swamped with work .... PLEASE review! 


	5. Lost and Found

LEGAL STUFF: I don't own COWBOY BEBOP, though if my Powerball ticket ever comes in, I sure as hell will. This story is strictly for the enjoyment of fans.

Time to bring this baby home. I'm not sure if a lot of people like it, but I think enough of the right people do ... at least enough to keep me writing. I've really enjoyed writing this story and it's spawned enough ideas to keep me busy for awhile. So please READ & REVIEW! It's what keeps us writers going. 

All feedback / reviews / suggestions / flames may be directed @ ckrisz@outgun.com

****NOTE*****

This chapter is far from done. I uploaded it onto FF.net just to try and see if I could get italics to work. It didn't, but when I was about to remove the chapter, it told me that if this was the last chapter of the story, it would remove the entire story! So I'm sorry to cut it off basically in the middle of the chapter, but it WILL be updated soon!

-------------------------------------------------

Jet squeezed the trigger. The enormous .50-caliber Barrett sniper rifle slammed him in the shoulder, and the jolt almost made him miss seeing the round hit a syndicate officer in the building across the street. 

This is a big gun, he thought as the syndicate gunmen hit the floor. They had disappeared from his sight, but the Barrett could easily blast through the cheap brick and formacast that passed for the walls of the headquarters building. Jet didn't even bother to pop the infrared sight; he simply dropped the barrel down a few inches and began pumping .50-caliber shells through the area below the window. Men jumped up like rabbits, bolting for the door. Jet shot two more before the room emptied.

The big sniper rifle was one of several guns that Faye had already unloaded from Redtail when Jet had dropped Hammerhead down into the Orphis slums. He'd found her standing in an alley, two unconscious syndicate gunmen lying on the ground at her feet, and at least a dozen weapons laid out in front of her as she thumbed 9mm rounds into a magazine for her H&K submachine gun. The look on her face had stopped him from asking questions.

"You don't have to come," she'd said. "I'm going to go find a friend."

  
His eyes must have given him away. She hadn't smiled. "Not Spike. I don't know where he is. I'm going either way. You don't have to."  


Why should he? What had she ever done for him? Jet dropped to his knees next to her and began helping her load up clips. Who the hell was this friend of hers? Someone else to get them all into who knows what kind of mess? "Where'd you get all this?"

"The friend I'm going after." Faye handed him a small hologram, her fingers slightly greasy from gun oil. "He's in the Syndicate building in downtown Orphis. Don't worry about the cops. They won't show because they'll assume it's Syndicate business." Jet looked at the hologram. Some kid with zits on his rosy cheeks. What the hell was going on?

Faye's voice was flat, almost empty. "I think it'll be better for you to be on the roof across, with the big gun. Don't shoot him." She slapped a clip into her submachine gun, the metallic clack ringing in Jet's mind. "Don't shoot me, either."

"Don't tell me how to do a job, woman." Jet stood and began bolting together the big sniper. His voice was rough, but he was thinking to himself that he had never, ever seen her like this before. "The ISSP ain't a charm school." 

"And you're not very charming," she said, her lips cocking upwards slightly, and for some reason it almost made him smile. 

"Hrmph," he grunted instead. "Depends on who you ask."

And now he was here, aiming down the Barrett's long barrel at the syndicate fools running around in their silly headquarters building. It was obvious they hadn't had any plan for this kind of thing. They weren't even ducking down, just gaping and running as Jet put carefully aimed .50-caliber rounds through desks, sheetrock, armor vests, and them. They were getting soft, he thought. Ever since they'd wiped out the White Tigers and took hold of Mars completely, they'd never had to face a challenge …

A few return rounds came whizzing back, bringing him back to the present; the brighter ones had pinpointed his position. Should have picked something lighter, Jet thought to himself as he hunched down and crawled fifteen meters to the opposite side of the rooftop. He put the Barrett down on its tripod and clicked the infrared sight open again. Globular shapes sprang into view, heads and bodies crouched behind windowpanes and furniture. He waited for shapes to move, enough to discern the hard, flat lines of weapons. Then he picked his targets and let loose: _BRAK BRAK BRAK_. Shapes shuddered, flopped, scrambled to run. The Barrett clicked empty as Jet put his last round through two walls and a syndicate gunman's belly. 

The chaos of the lobby area was clear for Jet to see. He was impressed. Never thought she had it in her, he thought. To charge the Syndicate in its own lair, even taken off guard ... Who was this friend who she was doing this for? Who the hell was that kid?

Long, black sedans and bulky airtrucks began making their way around the corner. Men spilled from them, rifles and pistols swinging towards phantom targets. Some bright boy had called for reinforcements. 

Redtail, on autopilot, turned to face them. Jet smiled as the Nambus sang and heavy armor-piercing shells reached out to gut the first car, spinning its debris in fiery pinwheels over the block. Another car blew apart as Redtail swept the north intersection.

Jet winced as two bullets snapped above his ear. He braced the .50-caliber and centered it on the nearest sedan, watching two more pull up behind it. The men crouching below had seen him, were already spraying wild fire up at the rooftop as he began picking his targets. Two men broke from the crowd and sprinted towards the door of his building. They were catching on uncomfortably fast.

Redtail's guns clicked empty, and the monofighter's autopilot sent it swinging upwards and away. The carcasses of four cars and twice as many men burned and bled in its wake, but already more were pulling up as the syndicate began to rouse itself from the depths of the city.

Hurry Faye, Jet thought as he centered on the first runner. _BRAK_. Cowboys aren't made for last stands.

--------------------------------------------------

"What?"

Spike lifted the Jericho from Faye's shoulder. He was looking at her quizzically.

Faye looked back at him, open-mouthed.

"I thought I snuck up on you, but you said my name," Spike said, a crooked grin on his face as he pushed past her. "You're not as oblivious as usual."

Did I say his name ... ?

"But you're as lunkheaded as ever! Where were you?" Faye shouted. She felt a sudden surge of familiar anger, looking at that damn _smug_ look on his face. The anger was reassuring. It helped to wash away the strange, clammy churning in her gut that had come as soon as his voice had touched her. Was it relief? Something else?

What the hell … ?

"Did you see my father?" It was that skinny girl, braids swinging and a pistol in her hand, coming up the stairs behind Spike. "Did he come here?" The look on her face was of pure desperation.

"He went that way---" Faye looked back down the hall and saw Spike already disappearing around the corner. 

"_BAKA_!" The word exploded from both women, and they looked at each other for a moment, surprise written on their faces.   
  
Faye smiled, and so did the skinny girl. When she did that, her face seemed to drop a mask, and several years. She looked very pretty, Faye realized. I never realized she'd be so young …

"My name's Faye," she said as they moved down the hall. 

"I know, he told me," answered the girl. "He talked a lot about you." 

Lornette almost missed the look of shock on Faye's face. Spike hasn't changed at all, she thought. He never really did know much about women. 

"I'm Lornette." 

Faye started and looked at the girl again. Lornette? She wasn't Julia? Spike never mentioned any Lornette, neither did Jet ... Who was she?

Faye stopped thinking and went first, elbowing past the younger woman as they turned the corner. Another stairwell opened before them. As Faye began to climb warily, a Red Dragon goon bounced down the stairs towards her. Lornette and Faye both swung to aim, but he was already unconscious; an arm bent back on itself and his head rebounding off the concrete as he landed at Faye's feet told the story.

  
"Hey, watch it!" Faye shouted as she went over the drooling gangster. Spike stuck his head back to look at them. 

"Get back! I'll handle this!" His voice was strained. He'd been hit once in the left arm, and blood leaked down his sleeve.

Faye snarled back at him and went up the stairs three at a time, Lornette a half step behind her. _That idiot had gone and gotten shot again!_

A door clicked at the top of the landing; Spike whirled, his Jericho rising. His first shot blasted high as a mustachioed syndicate man appeared, paired Ingram machinepistols in his hands. Spike was already throwing himself to the side, but it was too late; the Ingrams would fill the whole stairwell with bullets. 

__

You won't do this to me again! The thought hit Faye before she even knew it was there.

A smile of triumph was breaking out on the gunman's face. It froze as Faye's bullet went in his right eye and out the back of his head. The man's fingers flexed and sprayed a futile burst of fire into the door as he convulsed. Spike was already stepping over his body into the hallway beyond, his mind skipping over what had just happened.

__

I missed. How did I ... how did she do that?

Spike's gun flashed across the three men coming down the hall, their eyes barely registering him before the bullets hit. 

__

I should be dead.

They were going down, dying, as he sprinted past. 

__

That woman ...

-----------------------------------------

Ho Nam slid down the wall, the revolver dead in his hand. Gods, it was heavy. He let it slip down until it was flat against the floor, pointed straight ahead. But he still held it, his finger tight against the trigger, his palm sticking to the grip with the blood that had slipped down his arm. 

He'd taken a 5.56mm uranium-tipped round in the chest from a rifleman whom he had shot a second late. It had gone in and out of him, straight as truth, and he'd staggered and almost fallen. _Wasn't that what you were looking for, old man?_

Vicious' men had set up in the top floor offices. Dead men had been scattered in clumps near the windows---a sniper? He'd come out of the last stairwell, blood licking warmly down his side and four rounds in the revolver, no time for questions.

Three of them were left in the wreck of a conference room, an older bearded one with a bowie knife raised above some squalling boy tied to a chair. Ho Nam's first bullet had gone high. His second blew the knife away along with the hand that held it.

One of them still had a pistol. Two shots had blown Ho Nam out of the doorway and dropped him where he lay now. 

Ho Nam could see them through shades of grey and white. The man whose hand he'd shot off was down on the floor, screaming, and another one was trying to help him. _Unless you've got a mobile surgical unit, boy, give it up … _

The one who'd shot him was coming closer. A blond boy, willow-cheeked and with eyes as innocent as summer rain. One of Vicious' hand-picked elite, he could tell by the red fringe of his trenchcoat---this boy was one of those who would shoot without blinking, be it man, woman or child. The new generation. The smile was cold as the boy raised his pistol.

But Ho Nam still had his gun, too. 

His second bullet ripped along the floor and into the boy's foot. His mouth opened, but no sound came out that Ho Nam could hear. _Still young_, Ho Nam thought as he put the last bullet through the boy's head. Funny, now he couldn't even hear his own shots.

He could barely make out the man who'd been helping the bleeding, handless one. Dark-skinned, with blue streaks in his hair. He'd picked up the boy's pistol and was aiming it. God, why wasn't there any pain? Ho Nam could feel bullets going into his ribs, his bones breaking under their blows. His body was twisting, he could feel the blood coming out of him, but the pain stayed away. For years he'd lived with pain, pain from wounds, pain from hate, but now … _Well, it is what I wanted_.

He saw with his eyes as the two men stepped over him, heading down the hall. _Do I look so dead already?_

He could see them, but another figure was looming behind him. That made no sense. The wall was there. But so was Vicious, not Vicious as he was now, but Vicious when all the boys still called him that as a joke, a light-haired boy who never fought anyone without a reason, who defended the weaklings and retarded ones and who spent hours caring for a dying old woman in a room without light. Refugees from Earth---she'd caught some sort of disease there, and they'd come to Mars for medical treatment back in the days when Mars still allowed immigrants in for reasons like that. He'd just been a runner and a lookout then; soft-hearted Mao gave him enough to keep him and his grandmother out of the food lines. But her treatment would have needed millions, and the Red Dragon wasn't a charity even if Mao had wanted it to be. They'd been looking to expand, and there was only way to do that. 

Ho Nam remembered ... God, how well the boy had moved! He'd been fast and strong even then, great speed and better reflexes. He didn't bend over for the common trash that had ruled East Tharsis back then. Ho Nam had sent him to Master Wong with a promise to look after his grandmother, and he'd kept his word. Moved her out of the dim shack they'd been living in to a Refugee Settlement Authority dorm, given her painkillers. Vicious had come back from his training whipcord-lean, the new strength burning in him. When he'd seen his grandmother lying on clean sheets, in a room with electricity and running water, his eyes had changed. Ho Nam had known that the boy was theirs. 

He'd taken him aside, a hand on his shoulder like the father the boy had never known. He explained what being a sworn brother of the Red Dragon meant. He asked if the boy was ready to swear the thirty-six oaths, to live and die by the code. Vicious just looked at him, eyes full of gratitude. Ho Nam and some of the brothers from Tharsis had administered the ceremony, and Vicious had spoken the words with all the fury of the convert. At the end of the ceremony, Ho Nam had looked him in the eye, his hand on his shoulder, but harder now, fingers digging into flesh to make sure the boy was paying attention. He'd reached into his jacket and pulled out a pistol ... Gods, he could still see it now. He'd handed it to Vicious, and their eyes locked. "You've said the vows, brother," he'd said, and watched as that last word hit. "Now go prove them."

__

I gave him that gun, Ho Nam thought. _I killed myself, Mao, all the others, on that day_. 

But then the memories fled, as quickly as they had appeared. The only thing behind him was a wall, and the blood that was clotting against his back. _Now_ it was starting to hurt. He laughed and spat blood up onto his chin. Maybe death didn't allow your memories to follow you, he thought. Thank God.

Gunshots, muffled yells and the sounds of bodies falling. Footsteps. It sounded so far away, he thought. Who knows, maybe I'm in hell already …

__

"Dieh!"

---------------------------------------------------------------

The man with no hand looked up as the door to the stairs swung open. His eyes bulged as Spike put a bullet through his forehead, dodging to the side as the man supporting him fired.

"Faye! Look---" Faye's Glock boomed twice, spinning the last gunman around. He collapsed against the wall, coughing through a ruined throat.

Faye came up the stairs and saw Spike kneeling before Ho Nam. Blood fanned the wall behind the older man and matted his suit jacket. She knew it wouldn't be long.

"Faye!" 

She ran to the doorway up ahead and saw Tylor, strapped to a chair with a black eye and a bruise spreading across his face. "Kid, you okay?"

Tylor smiled through broken, bloody lips. "Faye ... your friends play rough."

__

Friends? _No, they're not ..._ _they're just people I met._

Faye saw a bowie knife attached to a human hand in the corner of the room. She screwed up her face and went to pry the fingers apart.

Tylor waited as Faye retrieved the knife. He remembered feeling sorry, not scared, when the Red Dragon head had been about to cut his throat. He was sorry to have dragged Faye into this mess, sorry not to have put up a fight when the Red Dragon 49s had put the gun to his head, sorry to have even made that damn birthday cake. It was weird, how feeling sorry could blot out fear. But then that old man had appeared the doorway, saving his life ... and now he was going to feel sorry for the old man, as well.

"_Dieh!_ No, please ... Please open your eyes. _Open your eyes!_" Lornette's voice was low, harsh, desperate. "You open your eyes, dammit!" 

Spike stood as she cradled her father. He looked down at the man who'd help train him, who'd helped to raise him. Broken, shot, bleeding ... dying.

__

So this is what it'll be like.

Ho Nam's eyes fluttered open. He looked around, the blood crusting his face making him look like the ghost of a Sioux warrior, painted for battle. But his eyes were dim, lost. 

"Mace?"  


"Father, it's me ... Lornette." She pried the revolver from his hand, gripped his fingers.

"Lornette ... my daughter ..."  


"Yes, yes. I'm your daughter, I love you, do you hear me? Just hold on. _Spike!_ Call the ambulance! Now!" Her words were sharp, direct, commanding---everything a leader's voice was supposed to be. Spike could almost hear her father's ghost in her voice.

Ho Nam worked his fingers desperately, breaking free of her grasp. He grabbed the collar of her shirt, pulling her face down away from Spike. "Lor--Lornette .... Listen ... Na---_no revenge_ ... not for me ... _No revenge._ I ... I order it ..." 

"_Dieh_ ..."  
  
Ho Nam coughed wildly, convulsing. Lornette grabbed him, holding him tight, fresh tears staining her face.

"_My_ fault, Lornette ... I---I'm sorry ..."

He shuddered once and his eyes lost focus. Spike looked away.

Faye looked up as she cut Tylor loose, saw the look on Spike's face. _Blood_, she thought. _He has blood in his eyes, and I can't ..._

He must have sensed her looking at him. He met her face for a moment, and she thought he was going to say something. 

Instead his Jericho was up, so fast it was a dark blur. Spike put two shots into the head of the first syndicate man up the stairs, and pieces of it sprayed the line of men behind him.

Spike advanced down the hall, firing into the next man down the line. A machine pistol chattered, spitting rounds back, but another man went down. Faye came up beside Spike, ignoring the bullets, her Glock up. They stood side by side for a moment, their guns firing into their enemies---and then the syndicate men broke and ran. 

Spike let the clip fall from the Jericho and tucked it under his bleeding left arm, not trusting his hand to hold it. He reached for another clip and met Faye's hand already inside his coat. Their fingers touched.

Spike looked at her, shock replacing fury in his eyes. "H---hey, what ..."

Faye cocked a crooked smile at him as she pulled a grenade from his vest pocket. She held his eyes as she pulled the pin free with her teeth and spat it out. "Look out, cowboy."

She lobbed the grenade high, arcing towards the open stairwell. As it left her hand, a 

shape appeared in the doorway, gun raised.

"Faye!"

The gunshot rang as Spike slammed into her, his tall frame smashing them both to the floor. The shock of the impact knocked the wind from her for a moment, and her eyes bulged as Spike lay atop her. _What was he doing---_

A scream from the doorway and the grenade blew, shocking her senses again. It took her a few seconds to clear her head and realize that Spike was still on top of her.

"H-hey, get off---" 

Blood, warm and wet, dripped onto her belly. He grunted, struggling to lift himself. More blood.

"Stop it!" Faye put a hand on his shoulder. 

He rolled off her and crumpled on the floor, one hand pressing against the exit wound in his upper chest. His face was twisted in pain. 

"Oh God, you _idiot!_" Faye instinctively pressed down on his wound. Blood welled up around her fingers, sticking cloyingly to her skin. "Dammit! You _always_ get shot!" 

Tylor was at her side. He'd found a first aid kit somewhere. Faye looked up for a moment and saw that Lornette had covered Ho Nam's body with the torn cloak of one of the dead Red Dragons. The girl approached, the tracks of her tears still fresh and her father's gun in her hand. Tylor was opening a swab-on anesthetic.

"No, use the compress first." Lornette took off her short denim jacket. "Stop the bleeding." Her voice was as flat and unshakeable as stone. Faye had look hard to see that her hands trembling.

Spike had fainted, but Faye could still feel his heart beating. _Please hold on_, she thought. She remembered the time when he had fallen from the cathedral, his body soaring almost in slow motion as brick and glass exploded around him. She'd run through falling debris and fire, her hands still cuffed behind her back in that ridiculous evening dress, to kneel at his side and shout his name. _Why did I do that? I didn't know him then. _

More blood came, and Spike's body shook.

__

I don't know him now.

He grunted hard as Faye ripped open his shirt and pressed the white pad down onto his wound. The compress sealed itself down and began automatically dispensing a mix of coagulants, antibiotics, and painkillers into Spike's system. Faye and Tylor turned him over and did the same for the exit wound in left shoulder. The bleeding had stopped by the time Faye finished winding gauze around his shoulder and chest.

"He's still alive," Tylor said in relief as she finished. "He should be okay. I've seen guys make it through worse on Titan."

Faye sat up. She looked at the two of them kneeling at Spike's side. _Just kids_, she thought. 

"Okay, Lornette, Tylor, I need your help. Let's move him back away from here." As they began to pick Spike's limp body up from the floor, Faye dialed her comm. Time for Plan B.

"Faye-faye!"

"Ed, let's do it. You're sure you can go ahead and steer everything at once?"

"Ed already put in the autopilot programs!" Ed's elastic face seemed to contort into a new, wider, grin. "All smoothie!"

"Is Redtail reloaded?"

"All go, Faye-faye!"

"Don't forget to call ISSP. Tell Jet you're coming, too."

"Roger-dodger!"

Faye flipped the comm. off. Tylor was fiddling with the sights on Ho Nam's gun while Lornette tended to Spike in the far corner. _Does she really need to be leaning that close to him?_

Tylor handed the revolver to Lornette. "There, they should be okay now." He saw Faye looking at them. "So, Faye, what are we going to do?"

"We're going to sit tight."

-----------------------------------------------

Jet flung the last two grenades down the staircase and ran for it. Screams and gunshots chased him as he dived over the doorway's threshold onto the roof. 

He shook his head for a moment, grunting as his body whined about the strain he was putting on it once again. _Getting too old. _

But it only took him a half-second to roll to his feet and spin into a crouching position by the stairwell. Twisted metal and what was left of someone's torso lay in his vision. Smoke, cordite, and the smell of death wafted up at him.

Two men stumbled into view a second later, both carrying assault rifles. They were aggressive enough, Jet gave them that ... but there wasn't any reason to walk into the fumes and confusion so soon. He shot the first one above the nose and watched the body slump against the second syndicate man, throwing off his aim. A burst of fire stitched the stairway's ceiling as Jet snapped the second man's head back with the last bullet in his magazine.

He ejected the Walther's clip and reached into his pocket._ Last one, _he thought grimly as he slotted it and jacked the slide.

Why had he trusted that woman's crazy plan anyway? It all depended on her somehow getting up the stairs in one piece and in enough time to both free the hostage and keep the syndicate from finding and killing the sniper giving her cover, namely him. Pretty much everything after that was up to a 13-year-old kid who may or may not have fallen asleep already.

It made him grin. He wondered what Bob and the old salts at the ISSP would make of this when they found his body shot to pieces on some godforsaken rooftop in a backwater canal city. The Black Dog, the most feared cop on Ganymede, trusting his life to a woman who lived by lying and a child who was probably half-insane. 

He chanced a look down the stairs again. Someone was babbling in pidgin Cantonese. Another voice cut in: "_What_ are you saying?"

Jet grinned. He aimed the Walther at a spot on the far wall. He waited for more babbling to come. He'd seen Faye pull this trick once on a bounty who'd had a thermo grenade and had been threatening to blow himself up ...

He fired twice. The _spang!_ of the ricochet was drowned out by a panicked yell. Jet smiled and ducked away as return fire came blindly back up the stairwell. 

Well, that would hold them for another minute or two. Two minutes and fourteen bullets between himself and the end. 

Hmmm, Jet mused. _Maybe just a tad over-dramatic_ ... 

The scream of engines cut him off mid-thought. 

Bebop dropped out the sky like a giant brown meteor, the noise of its passage ripping across Orphis City in a bald shriek of agony. _Dammit, she wasn't made to go that fast---_

Ed must have heard him, because Bebop began to level off at a thousand meters. The engines screeched as the old fishing boat's airbrakes kicked in and began to spin down towards Red Dragon headquarters. 

Jet felt a surprised relief as he punched Ed's code into the comm. "Ed! Go ahead and drop Hammerhead!"

He could barely hear the hacker's diminutive squeal: "Okey-dokey!" 

Both Redtail and Hammerhead seemed to fall out of the Bebop's hanger. Jet gaped, then sighed as both monopods leveled and accelerated towards him. Redtail peeled back and began a strafing run at the syndicate cars lining the street below, while Hammerhead dropped into a low braking turn over Jet's building.

The syndicate men got up the stairs just in time to see Jet close the canopy and lift off. They fired futile shots, then ran for it as Hammerhead's plasma engines burned the rooftop black.

Jet swung Hammerhead around to face the syndicate headquarters. "Faye!" he shouted into the comm. "Where---" He saw her then, waving in the window. 

Her voice was scratchy over the comm., almost as if she'd been crying. "Roof's blocked off. Stairway's full of them, we can't get past."  
  
Jet grunted. He'd known something like that was going to happen … With those two, it always did. 

"We'll make do!"

Jet fired Hammerhead's grappling hook into the room next to Faye's. The heavy metal arm crashed through walls and window. He cranked the hook back in and cleared an even larger hole in the building's side.

"Get ready! Ed! Get Redtail over here! Cover us!"

Jet was so busy maneuvering Hammerhead towards the new hole in the headquarters building that he almost didn't hear her shout, "You can't be serious!"  
  
"Do you want to stay and talk it over with them?"

That shut her up. Already he could see the teenager from Faye's picture framed in the hole, gesturing to him. As Jet angled closer, Faye and some teenage girl he didn't know dragged … _Spike!_ … 

"Goddamn women!" 

Hammerhead's broad, flat nose scraped against the side of building as Jet fought to keep the old mono-tug level. The teenage girl leaped down gracefully and reached back to cradle Spike against her as Faye lowered his semi-unconscious body down. Jet popped the canopy and the girl half-dragged, half-carried Spike to the cockpit.

"He's shot in the chest, but not bad! Just shock and blood loss!" She shouted to be heard over Hammerhead's engines. She lowered him into Hammerhead's cockpit and Jet flipped the canopy down again. It was a tight fit, but Jet's mind was too worried about the bandage across Spike's chest to notice.

"Ed! Get Redtail over there!" He waited for the girl to jump back up into the building before he swung Hammerhead away. Riflemen in the streets below were already firing at Redtail as the monofighter broke off. Faye and the kids would be sitting ducks for them as they tried to get into Redtail.

Jet snarled. _This crazy plan's come too far to fail now!_ He dropped Hammerhead almost to street level and buzzed the gunmen below. Bullets thudded into Hammerhead's armor as he passed over them, but the heat of the engines and the intimidating closeness of the tug's massive hull sent most of them scurrying for cover.

"Jet, we---we're ready!"  
  
He almost laughed. Faye sounded more cramped than he was. He could imagine trying to jam two teenagers and Faye into Redtail's small cockpit. Redtail staggered and swayed as it ascended towards Bebop's docking bay.

"Ed! Quit jamming the Army's frequencies and get the ISSP Tacticals in here. Remember, play the bioterror disc!" It had been Faye's idea to draw the ISSP Special Operations troopers in at the last moment, both to cover their escape and give the Red Dragon enough of a hassle to keep them from blockading Orphis. She'd suggested letting Ed pose as a terrorist group as she hacked her way into the ISSP mainframe, leaving enough clues for the ISSP to track her to an empty apartment building right across from the syndicate headquarters in Orphis. 

"ISSP Tacticals on-the-WAY!"

Jet spared a glance at Spike next to him. _How many times has it been, now? How many times are you going to try and kill yourself and expect me to clean up the mess? _

Though, come to think of it, at least he didn't have to play nursemaid anymore for that idiot. Ever since Faye had come aboard, she'd taken over caring for Spike …

------------------------------------------------

The lights were on. He could even feel them through his eyelids. _Damn, they're bright. Why so bright?_

Spike tried to put his left hand over his eyes. Odd. His arm wasn't working. He sighed and moved his right arm. A jagged pain refracted through up and down his ribs, and he almost moaned. But he forced the arm up anyway, edging through the agony and gritting his teeth, until his hand was over his eyes. 

The pain subsided as he stopped moving. Spike sighed in relief. 

Footsteps. "You _idiot!_" Faye.

Spike didn't try to answer. He knew what was coming.

  
"You're going to tear your stitches, lunkhead. Those bandages are in place for a reason, don't you know? I guess you don't care that I _wasted_ two hours stitching you up, then wrapping you. Like always." He could feel her getting closer, sitting down on the couch opposite him and leaning towards him. 

Why couldn't she leave him alone?

"You know, some people would thank me for doing this kind of thing _every_ time they got themselves hurt." 

Spike could see her with that sardonic who-cares look on her face, mocking him. _I should never have taken that bullet for her. Just let it hit her, then see if she still complains …_

Normally that thought would have stayed in his head, that and the irritation. But for some reason, it was already gone. He remembered the bullet blowing through him, the heat and pain, and his last thought before passing out: _Did it hit her?_

She had quieted down. What was she doing now? 

Faye looked around, making sure that neither Ed nor Ein was lurking about. Jet was still fixing Redtail from the hits it had taken down in Orphis; Tylor and Lornette had both volunteered to help him. Tylor was already trying to talk Jet into buying recalibrated caseless ammunition for them and a plasma turret for the Bebop. She remembered his whiny little voice, pointing out the advantages of plasma weaponry on ships versus cheaper Gatling cannon, the swelling bruises on his face dulling his enthusiasm not at all. The kid was a gun nut, but there was steel under the zits and the nervous laugh. 

When she was sure there wasn't anyone under the couch, Faye leaned over Spike. She looked down at him, almost backing out on what she had planned to do. _Why now? Gods, you're so stupid. Just stop right now, just go back and do what you always do, make fun of him, say he's a mummy or tell him to get out of the way the next time …_

Spike felt her above him. He felt a sort of panic boiling up in his stomach, and moved his arm to look at her. _What was she---_

"Thank you."

The whisper hit Spike like a runaway truck. Surprise ran through his whole body. _WHAT did she say? _

What happened then was worse. Her eyes were fixed on him, and he looked into them, really looked into them, for the first time. They were beautiful eyes, he realized; deep emerald that would suck any man in before he even knew he was lost. But what Spike was seeing in them was beyond color, beyond appearances. 

Sincerity. She really meant what she was saying. How many times could you say that about Faye? She'd lied, cheated, scammed her way across the solar system ... but not now. Those eyes---_God, they were beautiful!---_weren't lying now.

And there was something else there, a certain something ...

__

Look away. Go for your cigarette like you always do. Just get her to stop looking at you like that. 

Faye could see the shock from her words, and for some reason it bothered her that he would be so surprised. But she didn't move. She just kept looking at him, into those odd eyes, with one just slightly darker than the other. When she looked into them, she felt something strange welling up from her gut, something she couldn't quite name. It was insistent, inevitable; a fiery warmth that came from the pit of her stomach and spilled into every part of her body. It melted her fears until there wasn't anything left but emotion, a heat so powerful it almost made her dizzy with the pure pleasurable force of it. 

Her gaze was naked now, she knew. Her eyes shone with that feeling and she didn't look down or away from him as she always had before. She wasn't afraid anymore. The knowledge kept her there; the knowledge that he had taken the bullet meant for her, had called her name as he did it … _her_ name. 

"Faye."

His voice was throaty from not having spoken, but it wasn't what touched her then. It was his eyes, the deepness within them, that were meeting hers. They didn't waver; they didn't blink or look away. 

__

There was … something … 

"Hey Faye! I need your lighter!" 

Tylor's voice was as earnest and clumsily loud as usual. He ran into the room, carrying the cake box with him. He saw Faye get up from her position near Spike and look away from him. For a second, Tylor thought that she was angry---no, _furious_. 

But her voice was light, energetic, almost relieved, as she took out her lighter and handed it to him. "Hey, here you go. What's it for?"  


"That kid, whatshername, I think Ed? She found some candles and I thought we could, you know, for Mr. Black." He set the cake box on the table and flipped it open. "See, it's really not that bad. I think especially since he came in and did all that, you know, back in Orphis, he really deserves this cake. It's his birthday, after all, ya know. Ed said that Mr. Black really likes his birthdays." He scratched his head for a moment. "At least I _think_ she did." 

Spike listened to the kid prattle on, lighting the candles and almost burning himself. _What was it then, that thing … I know I felt something. Did she sense it too? Did she know … ?_

Faye nodded blindly as Tylor talked, giving him a blank smile. All the anger, its heat so different from what she'd felt, had dissipated. Only a cold flush in her spine, a cold something … what was it? Disappointment? Relief? What had been warming her before? 

__

Well … I know I felt something. It was probably just me …

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Okay, I hope people liked this chapter. I've been thinking of taking it away from the series storyline and moving it into serious Spike/Faye territory. Please REVIEW! Tell me if this is worth doing!


	6. A First Time for Everything

Okay, this fic turned into something a bit bigger than what I had originally planned. But I hope folks are enjoying it. If you are, please REVIEW! Or even if you're not. It's what keeps us writers going.

What also keeps us going is people who help us read and make corrections to our writing. There's people who helped me a LOT with this fic. I won't embarrass anyone by associating them by name with this lil story, but you know who you are. Thanks a lot! It wouldn't be half as good without you.

There's no action in this chapter. Instead I try to get into the heads of the various characters, and Vicious makes his first appearance. This fic requires VERY careful reading! I'd be really interested in how good people think I am when I don't have people shooting each other left and right, so please tell me!

LEGAL STUFF: This fic is strictly for the enjoyment of readers. If I had anything worth suing me for, do you think I'd have a cheap hobby like this?

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"The entire Orphis organization is a wreck. Almost a hundred men dead and injured. The headquarters and several vehicles have been destroyed. The ISSP, the Army, Orphis police, they all want an explanation. Will you provide it for them?"

"Isn't that why we employ so many lawyers?" 

Vicious stared back at the Elders of the Red Dragon. Their eyes met his without quavering. 

_Well, why not. The old fools can have me executed right here. I've broken the code often enough, as if that mattered. But it doesn't, and they won't. _

"You have a defiant tongue, Vicious." The Elder to the far left, Wong Ying, had spoken. The most conservative Elder, and by far the most underhanded in his scheming.

"I defy nothing. I only state facts."

"As have we, today." Wong Tou, the Elder on the far right. "We are interested, Vicious, in knowing how you would punish someone who has gone as far as you have here in Orphis."

"I've removed a threat to the Red Dragon. There are factions within the ISSP that would have loved to get their hands on a 426 from the old days."

"Is that so?" Wong Long, the oldest and deadliest man in the Red Dragon, who occupied the seat of honor in the center. "Some say that this rogue 426 had help. The ones who gutted the headquarters building and defeated your men. Former friends, perhaps, from the old days?"

Vicious' mouth curved slightly in rage. Someone would die for that remark, and surely Wong Long knew it. Simply by mentioning it, he'd shown the strength of his network of informers. _Kill one, but there will be another._

"After all, Vicious …" Wong Long's voice was rough, showing none of the polish of his brothers. "It wouldn't be the first time you let your emotions get you into trouble."

Vicious stiffened. _How dare that old bas---_

"There was that recent problem at the cathedral. Some White Tiger holdouts, is that what you said? Killed all your men? Very regrettable." Wong Long continued, his words like shards of glass. "And of course that little incident from the War. Do you remember that?"

Vicious' eyes were dark stone. His muscles knotted under the cloak, pleading, and he was very aware of the katana's crystalline length on his hip. _I will slaughter them, I swear it today. I will see their blood gush onto the floor before me ... I will take their bones in my hands and break them into dust ... Their screams will serve as my music as I slice the skin from their flesh---I will---I---_

"I---" Vicious gritted his teeth and suppressed himself savagely. "I serve the Red Dragon."

The Elders continued to stare down at him, letting the silence draw out his humiliation. Five minutes passed before Wang Long spoke again.

"Vicious. You will report back to the Mountain Hall on Tharsis. Your private funds will recompense the families of the men who've died because of your folly and pay all necessary costs." _Bribes. "You will be restricted from all activities on behalf of the Red Dragon until further notice."_

"You mean, until the next war." And there would be one soon, whether or not his men had to start it or not.

When they didn't answer, Vicious turned to leave. As he exited the Elders' interrogation chamber, the moisture of the outer room struck him. The old lizards required their air bone-dry to keep their ancient lungs from clogging with phlegm. Men scurried to and fro in the control room opposite, working to make sure that the holy Elders didn't feel an unnecessary chill. 

_Those damn corpses. They should have died long ago._

"Vicious_-sama." Two of his aides, Ko and Turin, appeared. Ko's scar, a souvenir of Titan, wobbled on his cheek as he spoke. "We've identified Chan Ho Nam's DNA among the dead. ISSP has taken the bodies, but we're sure of it. He's dead."_

Turin was a former White Tiger who'd planted the bombs aboard his own leader's shuttle when Vicious had replaced Mao Yenrai. He, too, had scars from Titan; in his case a tank-grown leg to replace one lost to a mortar shell. "The bounty hunters hid in the outbound traffic. They scrambled our monitors' tracking computers. We think they may have jumped to Earth, but for all we know they're already back on Mars. They have a good hacker." He leaned forward and smacked his fist into his hand. "We'll find them, sir!"

Vicious' expression didn't change. "Confirm that he's dead. I want his body seen and recorded. Turin, I want you to take care of it."

It was raining as he left the building. Men from Iblis Canyons, loyal to the Elders, fell in behind him. The sun had long gone, and the rain came down as white sheets through the streetlights. 

"Sir, the car's here."

Two men sat across from him as the aircar hissed upwards, headed for the spaceport. 

Alone amongst his guards, Vicious remembered.

_Ho Nam's dead. _

The older man's hand on his shoulder, the look on his face as he called Vicious 'brother' for the first time ... The heavy weight of the gun he'd handed to him. _How could I have been so stupid to trust like that ... Even when I was young, I should have known better._

He could hear his own voice; younger, softer, furious: _"Who are you to say who lives and who dies? Who am I?"_

_"You can't deny that man deserves to die. He betrayed the oath, surrendered brothers to the police." Ho Nam had been so calm. __"And it's not me who ordered this. This comes from the Elders themselves."_

_"Those brothers were putting little refugee girls on the street---"_

_"And he should have reported it to his 426. Not to the filth."_

_That hand on his shoulder again. Gods, how could he have ever fallen for that ... _

_"I know it's a hard one for your first. I know you don't want to do it. But remember that he swore his oath, just like you, and he threw it away. A Red Dragon who throws away his word throws away his life."_

Vicious snarled. _And when the Elders forced me to break my word, where were you and your hand?_

One of the guards from Iblis glanced at him. The pure hatred on Vicious' face almost made the man draw his gun.

Vicious forced himself to settle back into an impassive mask. _Fools, nothing but frightened fools.__ I'll settle these along with all the others, when my time comes. Soon. _

-------------------------------------------------------

Jet spooned the last piece of his slice of cake into his mouth. That kid knew his lemon frosting, he had to admit. 

The first bite had been something of a disappointment---two rifle bullets had punched through the cake, and the taste of burnt gunpowder had made Jet's eyes water for a moment. But he'd just gritted his teeth, took a drink, and gave the thumbs up to Tylor and Faye, who'd been eyeing him suspiciously.

The frosting more than made up for it, Jet decided. As long as you avoided the burnt parts where the armor-piercing rounds had passed through, it was a damn masterpiece. 

Nice of the kids to remember his birthday, he thought. Maybe there was some hope for them after all. 

"Mr. Black, where do you want these?" Tylor came staggering in under an armful of hydrogen batteries. 

"Next to the crate of Cup Ramen." Jet waved at the wall next to the refrigerator and next month's lunches. "I'll sort them out later."

Tylor set the batteries down heavily, then wiped his brow. "That's all the stuff that was left." He took a hesitant step forward and stopped.

Jesus, this kid was too much, thought Jet. That's what the Army did to you. "You can sit down, I told you that already."

"Thanks!" Tylor slouched down on the couch. "Those batteries were a killer." He looked around briefly, then stared at the table. He kept staring until Jet was about ready to strangle him.

"Go ahead, have a piece. You made it, after all." 

Tylor's grin broke out again. "Thanks, Mr. Black!"

Jet nodded and dabbed his lips with the napkin. He watched the kid eat happily, even though he'd cut himself one of the pieces where a bullet track had run. For someone who had gone through the Titan War, he seemed pretty normal. Jet had met more than a few Titan vets---plenty of them had joined the ISSP and local police forces after the war. Shootings of suspects had risen astronomically afterwards. 

"Mr. Black?"  
  
"Hmmm?" Jet looked up.

"Can I ask you ..." The kid looked away. "I'd like to go down planetside again, if you can take me. I'm going to re-up with the Army. Frontier Corps."

Jet stared. "Really? Are you sure?"

Tylor gave him a nervous smile. "I made up my mind."

"Frontier Corps. That's pretty isolated stuff."

"Yeah, I guess. You get good wages, though."

"Are you sure? You've been pretty useful around here." Jet put his plate down and looked more sternly at Tylor. "I own this ship, after all. If you want to stay, I'm the only who can say no."

Tylor fiddled with his hands. "No, that's not it. Everyone's been great. It's just that ... I don't know if I'm cut out for life out here. I had some bad times in the Army, but I grew up in an orphanage. The Army takes care of you kind of like an orphanage. I---I don't know how to explain it." When Jet gave him a questioning look, Tylor met it firmly. "There's this old expression from Earth, I don't know if you've heard of it. I don't want to be a 'third wheel.' Do you know what I mean?"

Jet just looked at him.

"Well ... It's kind of when you have two people, and they're, well---" Tylor blushed. "And there's this one out here who's ..." He couldn't finish. The words cloyed on him, stuck and didn't come, so he just gave Jet a weak smile. "Well, it doesn't matter. Besides, it's probably best for me anyway. It's a good way to get away from Mars, and I don't think the Red Dragon will try and snatch a Mars Army soldier all the way out on the Defense Frontier." 

Tylor watched as Jet stared uncomfortably at the wall. _I wonder if he does understand, Tylor thought. __Probably.__ It must be tough with Faye and Spike aboard, like that. _

"Mr. Black?"

"Yeah, kid?"

Tylor gave him a hesitant smile. "I don't have much stuff. I'd appreciate it if we could go now."

"Hm. Up to you." Jet got up and walked towards the ship bay. "I'll go tell the others."

"Uh, Mr. Black? Could we just go now?" Tylor had just some tools and the clothes on his back. He stepped forward. "Just tell Faye---tell her thanks, when you get back. Thanks for everything."

-------------------------------------------------

Spike flexed his left hand, feeling the blood crawling back into it. Pain dragged along for the ride, twisting through his fingers as he extended them and curled them back into a fist. 

They'd made a quick exit to Venus, Ed scattering false traces to and fro across the Solar System. They'd been almost a week in an atmosphere slot over the terraform islands. Jet and Tylor had gone planetside for supplies, while Lornette sat and watched the Venus spores fall like snowflakes to the planet below, not talking to anyone. He hadn't been conscious long enough to speak with her yet. This was the longest he'd been up for awhile now. The longest since Faye had told him thank you …

Where was she?

Spike pushed the thought away. "Like I care," he said to himself.

Those green eyes … he knew he'd seen them in his dreams. He couldn't remember the dreams, but they'd been there, open and trusting and oh so vulnerable …

_I'm losing it, finally. This damn bullet's the one that did it. _

For three years, he'd thought of Julia. At least once a day, she had come to him: beautiful and untouchable, glancing at him with the same distant, regretful look in her blue eyes. That look had entranced him, made him want to take her in his arms and protect her forever from the brutal, stupid world. What kind of world was it that could hurt her, that didn't know how to treasure an angel?

He'd never had to reach for her. She'd simply come, invading his dreams or his waking moments without an invitation, giving him that look that made him want to die for her. 

But now it had been three days, and he hadn't thought of her once.

Spike plucked a cigarette from his pocket with his right hand. He lit it and let the smoke fill his lungs. His memory unwound not to Julia, as it always had, but now to a short man with slick, braided dreadlocks and two snow tigers leaping up powerful forearms. Leopard Wong, the first man he'd killed.

Why was he remembering that bastard? He'd been nothing but a grimy pimp who specialized in slashing small X's into the necks of his girls and young boys to mark them as his property. Ho Nam had told him the reasons for Leopard's death: the Red Dragon had offered protection free of charge to his stable, which he'd rejected. When one of his women tried to leave, Leopard Wong had broken her kneecaps and left her to die in the middle of morning rush hour traffic. She'd been saved by young Lin, who'd taken her to a Red Dragon clinic and gotten the story from her, as well as the fact that Leopard had begun buying refugee children for his stable of late. 

Mao and Ho Nam were smart, Spike thought. They knew who to choose for my first one.

Because Leopard was supposed to be a martial arts expert, they'd chosen Spike and ordered him to do it with his hands. The message would be sent that it was impossible to resist the justice of the Red Dragon, no matter who you were. 

Spike had caught up with Leopard in a smoky karaoke bar in East Tharsis. Lin and Angel had cleared the pimp's crew out the door at gunpoint. When they were gone, Spike had grinned and extended one empty hand. Leopard came in kicking, fear and rage knotting every muscle. For all the rumors on the street, the pimp had been only slightly above average. Spike could remember the fight like it was yesterday: the first _lung-tui had been chest high and Leopard was off-balance already; Spike had slipped it to the left, dipped under and around the follow-up snap-kick. As Leopard began to drop his leg Spike bulldozed in, snapping the pimp's head back and jamming a knife hand into his throat. As Leopard gagged, Spike had thrown him to the floor and stepped on his neck. Leopard screamed once; Spike grabbed him by the dreadlocks and wrenched upwards, just as Ho Nam had instructed. Leopard's neck had snapped like a gunshot. _

Spike remembered the nauseous look on Lin's face; Angel, an older man who'd been with Ho Nam since the camps, took him in hand. Together they wrapped the body and took it outside to the car. 

Spike laughed at himself. He hadn't known what to do after. He'd just followed them out to the car, got in, and told them to drop him off near his apartment. He'd walked up the stairs to his door, fumbled with his keys, and thrown up on his own doormat. 

For three days he'd sat in a corner of his apartment, not answering calls or the door. Leopard's face came to him, the look of shock still in his eyes, but more often it had been his own body, broken and dying and alone, that he'd seen. When he'd finally slept, it'd only been for minutes a time, and Leopard's silent, dumb, dead face had awoken him. 

He wondered how Leopard had felt when his men left him. 

In the end Mao himself had broken down the door to get him out of there. It'd been Ho Nam's idea to bring the children that Leopard had bought to thank Spike personally. The children's tears had brought him back to himself, that and Mao's own gravelly voice, full of trust. But even then he'd known that Leopard would never leave him. 

_Why am I thinking about that nonsense now? _

Spike took a few more puffs, ground the cigarette out. For some reason, he didn't feel like smoking anymore. He wondered idly if Faye had ever thrown up after killing someone. 

He knew that Julia hadn't, not ever. Julia, with the distant eyes … men had died for her, had thrown away their lives to shield her, to hold her, to seize her for their own. Vicious had killed how many, just for that privilege? And for a woman like that, what man wouldn't be happy to trade his life? 

But through it all, those distant blue eyes had never changed. In the end, when he'd asked her to follow, those eyes had promised nothing. 

_And I've been nothing, ever since._

Something nagged him. He couldn't quite place it …

_Redtail__ swept in over the neon hell of Space Land, cannons ablaze at the madman who wanted his life. _

_The sound of Faye's Glock taking the shot he'd missed, killing the Red Dragon who would have sprayed his insides all over a filthy Orphis stairwell. _

He tried to imagine Julia piloting Redtail into a rocket to save him, or going into a Red Dragon headquarters for a teenage boy she barely knew. It was like trying to imagine her throwing up.

Stupid Faye. Julia would never have done those things …

Spike got to his feet and arched his back. His newest wound burned and stitches stretched. Faye would be pissed if he just popped them open again---

He relaxed. The stitches itched, and stayed.

_What a lunkhead you are, Spike thought. It made him grin to hear Faye's word in his mind. He limped down the hallway, looking for Lornette._

----------------------------------------------------

Well, I was going to make this longer, but I decided to just break it off here and leave you folks on a Spike/Faye note.

I was trying here to draw out the difference between Spike and Vicious. I tried to be very subtle about it, too subtle some would say … the main difference drawn here is that Vicious believes what Ho Nam asks him to do is wrong, but does it anyway; Spike did what Ho Nam asked him to do and only realized the horror of it afterwards. I think this is a major moral difference and it plays a key role in determining what kind of person they turn out to be. This wasn't the only reason for including Vicious among the characters in this chapter, but it's a major one. 

So how was the chapter and writing? Is my emotional stuff any good? Too subtle? Too blatant? Did you get the message I was trying to put forth? Don't pull any punches! Hit me with a review, or email me @ ckrisz@yahoo.com!

Thanks!


	7. Reflection and Revenge

Okay, sorry that this fic took so long to update. It's been awhile, but I'm not done with it yet! You may want to go back and review what happened in Chapter Six, otherwise some confusion may result.  
  
If anyone knows how to put italics into this new FF format, please tell me!  
  
This is my first chapter without any major action, and I'm frankly worried about it. I wrote it to give an insight into Lornette's, Faye's, and Spike's frame of mind at this moment, and to try and articulate their confused emotions. It sets up the action of future chapters. Anyway, I hope people like it, but if you don't, please go ahead and tell me so I can get better! Please review!  
  
As always, you can email any responses to ckrisz@yahoo.com. I will always respond to whatever you have to say.  
  
Thanks again!  
  
P.S. Please allow me to pimp my other, original (well, not all that original) story on FF.net which can be found here: http://www.fanfiction.net/read.php?storyid=855970 Sorry, but it's also incomplete. Supposedly it is very CROUCHING TIGER- like. It's also a bit more bloody than this one. Check it out!  
  
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Hammerhead spun down the Venus gravity well, slicing through the swirling orange clouds in a glimmering flash. Lornette watched, and wondered if Spike was aboard.  
  
Venus had a special place in her memories. Her mother had taken her on a vacation to the Turkish Market on Venus once, as her father did business in Topkapi, and she still remembered the thick black bitterness of kave coffee and the gentle eyes of the old vendor who'd sold it to her.  
  
Vicious had come with them on that trip. She remembered seeing him for the first time, a painfully thin blond boy whom her mother said would be helping to protect them. He'd had the katana even then, tied tightly under his Dragon coat.  
  
Her mother had laughed when the boy told them his name, and the boy had laughed too. "I'm not, it's just what the boys call me," he'd said. "I'm too skinny to be vicious." And throughout the trip he'd stuck by her side, holding her hand while her mother shopped, always smiling at her with careful, caring eyes. He'd made her feel safe even in a noisy, stranger- filled place like the Turkish Market.  
  
He's grown up since then. Well, so have I.  
  
Her father's last words stuck in her throat. How could he have given me an order like that? Because I came out a girl, and he always wished I was a boy? Did he think I was too weak?  
  
The White Tigers had come for her when she was eleven. They didn't know Ho Nam's Circle like they would come to know it, and someone had thought she'd make a good hostage. The assistant principal who'd called her from the classroom had been trembling, barely able to hide his terror of the huge men behind him. It'd been her second class of the day, ten in the morning.  
  
Her father had left two dozen White Tiger corpses in the streets by nightfall. The phone bleated endlessly in the basement apartment where they had tied her to bedposts; phone calls reporting cars bombed, buildings burned to the ground, men kidnapped, men killed. Lornette remembered feeling pity for the frightened Tigers who'd been watching over her. Her mother had showed her how to control her emotions, how to stare blankly and not give away a thing no matter how hard they looked. But these men couldn't even keep their voices from trembling as they argued over what to do with her.  
  
There'd been one Tiger in particular; rat-faced, pale, and milky-eyed. He'd been staring at her since they'd brought her to the safe house. Her mother had taught her about this kind of man as well --- Lornette knew already that the rat-faced man would suggest raping her and exposing her body in the street to shame Chan Ho Nam before all the syndicates of Mars. She knew that he would want to go first.  
  
The rat-faced man had been standing over her, his lips wet, while they screamed at each other. They'd still been arguing when the door blew down.  
  
Spike Spiegel had been the first man through the smoke and tear gas, firing even as the door fell. The pistols in his hands roared as he dove to the right; wild return fire spattered the wall and ceiling. Before the gas got into her eyes completely, Lornette saw more men in Dragon coats lunging into the room. Vicious' katana flashed, bright steel slashing through the yellow fumes and a man's neck in one brilliant curve.  
  
It was all screaming and dying men then; one young boy's voice begging for mercy; gunshots; the sound of metal going thunk! into meat and bone. She felt someone grab her, ripping her hands free from the bed painfully. She opened her mouth to shout for help, knowing without seeing that it was the rat-faced man who had her.  
  
He'd almost managed to get his arm around her throat to use her as a shield when Vicious' throwing knife took him in the eye. Blood and mastic fluid trickled down onto her forehead, and his scream was like nothing Lornette had ever heard. She blinked furiously from the gas, crying out herself, and saw Spike fire once. The hypershock round blew the rat-faced man's head off.  
  
Vicious had rushed to her, kicking away the corpse and wiping at her blood- spattered face with the sleeve of his Dragon coat. "Are you okay!?" he'd shouted through the din, and she was okay, because it was still the voice of her skinny protector from the Turkish Market then, asking her if she wanted to try some vanilla kave before they went to find her mother.  
  
Two weeks later, returning from her grandmother's care, she'd found that Vicious had left for Recruit Training, headed for Titan. Her father had looked pained as he told her. Don't worry, he'll be okay, he'd said. Spike will help protect you from now on.  
  
"Lornette."  
  
She turned her head with a jolt. "Faye?"  
  
Faye nodded as she looked out the window. "I like to come here, too. Sometimes." She leaned against the railing and lit a cigarette. "Gets me away from the others."  
  
Lornette nodded, not really understanding. The last droplets of blood faded from her mind's eye, and something in her felt relief.  
  
"So how did you like Jet's cooking?" Faye asked, puffing once. "It's not often he brings out the meat."  
  
"Uh . it was okay ."  
  
Lornette could tell the bounty hunter wanted to talk about something, to ask about something --- her mother had taught her about that kind of thing, too. But she's letting the cigarette get in the way. Well, that's fine with me!  
  
"Faye?"  
  
"Huh?"  
  
"What's up with that kid, the one with the orange hair?"  
  
Faye looked at her quizzically. "Oh, you mean Ed!"  
  
"Ed?"  
  
"Yeah, Ed. We found her on Earth."  
  
"Oh ." Lornette looked puzzled.  
  
"You don't want to know." Faye let the vapors fill her lungs and blew out in a lazy swirl. She turned to Lornette suddenly, arms crossed, and smiled. "So you --- you must know Spike pretty well, for him to go running off with you and your father like that."  
  
Like anyone knows Spike. "Well ." Except Julia. Julia and Vicious.  
  
"From when he was younger, right? He's from Mars?" Faye suddenly seemed to shut her mouth, as if she was shocked by how much she'd given away.  
  
It was the words "from Mars" that set her off. Her father, walking through the smoke and blood of the blown-in door, Dragon coat covering his arm in a sling. "Lornette!"  
  
He'd felt so strong, eternal, as she jumped into his embrace. "Dieh!"  
  
Father ...  
  
And now she was alone.  
  
Lornette hugged herself and began to cry.  
  
---------------------------------------------------------  
  
Well shit, what did I do? Faye watched as Lornette sobbed quietly. "Uh, Lornette? Are you . okay?" If Spike saw this, he'd be mad. That the thought had even popped into her head made her even angrier with herself than she'd been before. Before Faye quite realized it, she'd already begun talking, the tone of disdain grating in her voice:  
  
"Look, do you want me to go wake Spike? Because maybe you need to talk to him---"  
  
Lornette looked up, stunned. How can she talk to me like ---  
  
Her hand was a flash of brown that Faye barely saw. It caught Faye half- ducking and spun her to the Bebop's deck with a crack!  
  
Faye shook her head and looked up. Lornette stood before her, hand still outraised, her pretty teenager's face streaked with tears. "I'm --- I'm sorry!" She turned and ran from the deck.  
  
Faye rubbed her cheek. Oh man, I can be such a jerk ... her father just died, and I talk like that .  
  
A part of her rebelled. At least she knew her father. At least she knew her mother, and friends, and Spike even!  
  
But Lornette's tear-streaked face, lost in the past and the hurt, shook her. It reminded her too much of the face she sometimes saw in the mirror. Only sometimes.  
  
Faye gathered herself and turned to go after Lornette.  
  
"Hoy, where are you going?"  
  
Faye knew that it wouldn't take much for Spike to see what had happened. The red, angry side of her face where Lornette had struck her, the just-lit cigarette straggling in the corner .  
  
Spike stared at her, his eyes dark. "What happened?"  
  
Faye looked away for a moment, and then met his eyes. "I have to apologize to Lornette."  
  
Spike sighed. "You seem to be doing that a lot lately," he said briefly, and began to shuffle past her.  
  
Faye felt her fists clench and her arms begin to quiver. How could . how dare---!  
  
"Whoa!" Spike hit the floor as Faye kicked his crutch out from under him. "Wha--?"  
  
"ENOUGH!" Faye shouted. "How can you be so SELFISH?!"  
  
Spike looked after her as she stomped off in the opposite direction. "Selfish?" he asked no one as she disappeared around the corner. "Me?!"  
  
------------------------------------------------------  
  
Lornette watched Spike limp into the supply closet that Jet had turned into her bedroom. Supply closets on interplanetary fishing vessels were large, and it took Spike and his crutch almost a whole minute to cross from the door to where she was sitting on her inflatable cot. He's so hurt, but he's coming to talk to me .  
  
"Hey," he said, sliding gingerly down to the floor, back to the wall. He closed his eyes and lit a cigarette, letting the smoke fill his lungs before blowing out in a huff of relief. "You okay?" He looked at her. "Don't worry about Faye. I told you already about how she's just a liar. No one around here takes her seriously."  
  
Lornette looked away for a minute. She'd dried her tears already, but the ache of her father's memory still ground angrily in her stomach. The feeling of her hand hitting Faye's face only made it worse. "Spike . please tell Faye I'm sorry. I didn't want --- I didn't mean to hit her. Please?"  
  
Spike raised an eyebrow. "It doesn't matter, I told---"  
  
"No ." Lornette looked back at Spike. A small smile crinkled her face. "My father says ---" She paused for a moment, the smile weakening. "He said that the reason Mother and him had me instead of getting a pet was that they could at least tell me to clean up my own mess."  
  
She's grown up, he thought. Julia always said that Lornette was a deep one .  
  
Lornette looked away again. "I think of my father a lot."  
  
"Yeah. Me too." Spike tapped her on the shoulder and saw a single tear in her right eye as she turned to him. Wordlessly, he offered her the cigarette in his hand.  
  
Lornette stared at it for a minute, then took it. She brought it to her lips, smiled, and exhaled. "I remember when I saw you smoking before, when I was a kid, and you said it was bad for me."  
  
"You're not a kid anymore," Spike said. He fished another Red from the crinkled pack in his left pocket and gestured. Lornette touched her cigarette tip to his, stifling a giggle, and Spike sat back with the cigarette dangling between his lips. "Your father knew it, too. He told me that he was proud of you, Lornette. You're his hope."  
  
Lornette wiped away the tear from her eye. Spike is right. My father was right. I am grown up now. I am my father's hope.  
  
She turned to face him. The words almost caught in her mouth, but when they came Lornette was shocked by the force of them. "Did you love my father?"  
  
Spike's eyes widened. Then he looked away. "Lornette ." He knew what she was going to say.  
  
"Then will you help me kill Vicious?"  
  
Spike breathed in, forgetting the cigarette in his hand. She always did take after Ho Nam more than her mother. "Lornette ."  
  
"Vicious murdered my father, Chan Ho Nam, the man who inducted him into the brotherhood of the Red Dragon. He murdered my grandmother, Dinah Mason. He murdered Walid Kuo, Oscar Martinez, Ti Lung, David Gorch, Musa Gorch, Soujiro Biao --- all of them his sworn brothers. He murdered Mao Yenrai, the leader of his Circle and the man who saved his life countless times. He betrayed the faith and honor of the Red Dragon and spit upon all tradition and order of the brotherhood ---" Lornette's voice was steady, iron-hard.  
  
Her father had taught her well. Spike knew her words as the old familiar cadence, the measured, final tone of a Red Dragon leader pronouncing the crimes of a person marked for death. He'd listened to Ho Nam saying those words hundreds of times, always ending with asking the sworn men of his Circle for help in "acquitting justice and settling debts." And how many times I stepped forward, he thought. How many times .  
  
"Lornette."  
  
"--- betrayed the faith of his leader and of the Elders ---"  
  
"Lornette!"  
  
She looked at him, eyes hopeful. "Spike, I knew you would ---"  
  
He raised his hand and waited for her to stop. The silence helped him clear his mind, to remember where he was.  
  
"Do you remember your father's words? What did he say?"  
  
"But ---"  
  
"Are you your father's daughter? You don't remember his command?" Spike almost shook his head. He didn't know the old words were still in him; he hadn't even known them for that long before he'd left. I guess Mao was a better teacher than I knew. "Your father said, 'No revenge.' He ordered you to allow him to pass into the next world in peace, without more bloodshed."  
  
She was staring at the floor, hands closed tightly. He prayed that she was listening.  
  
"Lornette." Spike touched her gently on the shoulder. "Your father didn't want this for you."  
  
He could feel her shake inside. She bowed her head. Spike reached out and gently put his hand on her shoulder, but she shrugged it off. "Please," she said.  
  
He got up and limped out of the room. As he left, he heard her begin to cry.  
  
It was the weeping of a girl again, a young girl who had lost her father. Spike knew that she had listened, that she would obey her father's wish, and he despised himself.  
  
Vicious.  
  
His eyes were death.  
  
----------------------------------------------------- 


End file.
